Approaching Storm (Alternate Worlds Book 2)

by Taylor Leigh

  Sam found it hard to believe Tollin would find anyone disagreeable. ‘Is he a dragon? Or like you?’

  Tollin laughed darkly. ‘Oh, he’s human, just like you. Well…not just like you. Human in a…loose sense of the word.’

  Sam raised her eyes again. ‘You don’t like him. What’s so different about him?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I’m sorry, Sam. But I can’t talk about this.’ She frowned in confusion as he grew suddenly uncomfortable. ‘But there are things you shouldn’t know. Not now, at the very least. Things are very…complicated. I don’t understand most of it myself! I can’t make any mistakes.’

  ‘Why not? Why does it matter if I know or not?’ Sam crossed her arms. ‘How much more about this life am I not allowed to know?’ She turned to him. ‘Does it have to do with me?’

  Tollin’s expression shifted, closed off. ‘I’m sorry, Sam. No.’

  Sam didn’t push the issue. She’d learnt by now that getting Tollin to talk about things he didn’t wish to was near impossible.

  Instead, she watched the stars for a long time in silence. Overhead the light was beginning to grow again, shining brighter by the second, almost as if Tollin’s presence had brought it to life. The glow reflected against his face, making his freckles stand out all the clearer.

  She found she wasn’t uncomfortable sitting next to him. It felt natural, in fact, like they’d been doing it for years. Their silence, instead of painfully awkward, was pleasant.

  ‘My dad and I used to watch the stars a lot. Never from a place like this, but we always enjoyed it.’

  Tollin directed his gaze to her. His lips turned down slightly by some quiet thought.

  Sam sighed, wanting to direct his intense stare away from her. ‘Never did see lights like that, though.’

  His brown eyes followed hers heavenward. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘That is a bit of a rare occurrence. Used to happen all the time. One rarely sees it now, usually way up in the atmosphere, and usually only during the Passing. A friend, she was very interested in it. Called it gold rivers. Back then it used to shine almost every night. Anyway, in the past now…’ He glanced away, jaw working, perhaps irritated by how much he was allowing himself to say.

  Sam studied him for a long moment, fighting down butterflies in her stomach. Now that she was alone with him, sitting next to him, Sam’s questions welled up inside her. So many to be asked, and the chance of him answering half of them seemed doubtful at best. Last thing she wanted was him cross with her. It was worth a shot, though, she figured.

  ‘Reminds me of another light I saw recently…’

  Tollin glanced at her, expressive brows hunched over his eyes.

  ‘First night I was with you. You were talking to someone. Some…woman. Made completely out of light.’ She bit her bottom lip. ‘Are you friends with ghosts as well, Traveller?’

  Tollin’s eyebrows arched impressively high, clearly caught off-guard. ‘What?’ He narrowed his eyes, skilfully attempting to hide the fact she’d flustered him. ‘You were supposed to be asleep.’

  ‘Bit difficult, all things considered.’

  He craned his neck back to watch the sky.

  Sam waited. He didn’t answer. ‘So?’

  Tollin cast her a playful glance. ‘What?’

  ‘Who was she?’

  Tollin drummed his fingers together in thought, clearly debating with what he wanted to tell her and what he wanted to keep to himself. Sam gave him a pointed look. This wasn’t something she was going to let just slip by, along with all the rest of the mysteries about him.

  ‘You were talking about me,’ she reminded him.

  Tollin winced, opened his mouth, shut it again and then gave her a hard look. ‘Just how much did you hear?’

  It was Sam’s turn to go silent. She shrugged her shoulders and gave him a teasing look that sent his eyes tighter.

  Finally, he let out a deep, hesitant breath. ‘She’s my…guide. She tells me where to go. What to do. All of this? All of my adventures? They wouldn’t happen…. I’d be…lost without her.’

  Out of all answers, Sam hadn’t expected that. ‘You’ve got some stunning goddess who guides you in life? What is she?’

  Tollin ran his hands through his hair, demeanour growing more uncomfortable by the second. ‘I don’t know.’

  Sam was beginning to wonder if she would ever understand Tollin. Everything he said was completely mad. Dragon Kin, thousand-years old, now he had some ghostly woman controlling his life? What else didn’t she know? The possibilities stretched endlessly in her mind. The world was too big. There was too much. ‘You don’t know what she is? Just some random spirit started talking to you one day so you decided to follow her?’

  Tollin scowled. ‘I wouldn’t put it that way, exactly. She’s been there for as long as I can remember. Like a guardian angel, if such a thing exists. Without her, I don’t think I’d be what I am today.’ He grew frustrated. ‘There is so much I don’t know, Sam. There is so much out there and what I know of it is so insignificant. It’s…humbling.’

  Sam mulled that over. She supposed that if there were Daemons, there could be other strange powers as well. ‘You said she guides you. D’you think she’s the same light that guided us out of the void?’

  Tollin shook his head slowly. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. It certainly makes sense. I just don’t know why it appeared to you, not me. And I’ve never seen her—it—take other forms before.’

  Sam shrugged smugly; she felt a bit pleased with that. ‘Maybe it just wanted to break me in to this new life.’ She sat straighter as a new, surprisingly wonderful thought hit her. ‘Is that why you came here in the first place? Is that why you knew to save me, because of your guide?’

  Tollin pulled several faces, struggling for words. ‘I can’t say, Sam. I missed the last anniversary and wasn’t about to miss another. That’s why I was there. That’s why I was looking for the ring. From what I knew the ring had remained hidden; so I went in search of it. I obviously didn’t find it because you had it. Call it coincidence or fate that threw us together, I don’t know. I never know. Sometimes things seem to work out in a way that makes it impossible to believe it’s anything other than fate.’

  Sam hadn’t thought of it that way, as much as she wanted to. Coincidence, yes. Fate? That wasn’t possible. How could she be fated to meet someone as incredible as Tollin and his friends? ‘You…think we were meant to find each other?’

  Tollin scratched the side of his face, looking a little uncomfortable with the statement. ‘I know things about my future—things I shouldn’t know. And…and I think I was meant to find you.’

  She shook her head, his words all blending together in a mixed-up jumble. ‘I don’t understand. You mean you somehow know from the…future that we were supposed to meet? How is that even possible? And if so…why didn’t you recognise me immediately?’ She became aware of her heart beating a little faster at the outrageousness of this conversation. Tollin was casually throwing around impossible statements that every rational human would discard as mental.

  ‘Yeah,’ he admitted heavily. ‘It’s a rather long…complicated story involving time travel and an irritable medium and I’m afraid I cannot get into it. I was here looking for that ring, and the stone, because the anniversary was near. Let’s just leave it at that.’

  Sam held up a hand. ‘Hang on, I remember you saying something about always looking for a ring when you meet someone. That’s the first thing to look for.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘Was a bit thick to not realise it was the same ring, but I guess that’s just the way life works sometimes.’ He let out a slight, musing laugh.

  Sam frowned thoughtfully. ‘So…if you would always look for a ring but not for the reason that it is tied to the anniversary, why?’

  He let out yet another deep breath; he squirmed. ‘And now we’re getting into dangerous territory.’

  A fire of curiosity burned through her.
She was lost in the oddness of his words. She was careful to consider but…what Tollin was saying, it sounded as if he was searching. If not for her—then someone—someone very much like her. There was something about her, something that connected her to Tollin. ‘Why?’ she stammered, trying to keep her voice free from nervousness but not quite succeeding.

  Tollin watched her closely, his expression softening. He seemed to catch on to what she’d realised. ‘Because, Sam, the future is a very sticky place and everything we do and say here and now has an effect on it…or, the possible future, at least.’

  She wished she had something besides the smooth surface of the tower to hold on to. ‘Can you…’ The thought was completely mental. ‘Can you time travel?’

  Tollin blinked. ‘What? No! Not intentionally, anyway. Let me just leave it at this and Sam, please, for the sake of everything, please do not ask further questions because I don’t know what it will do to the future. All I can tell you is someone in my future told me in the past to look out for a woman wearing a ring because she’d be important. That will have to do.’

  Sam rubbed a hand over her face. Her mind rolled on with thoughts. A cold breeze blew, making her shudder. She had a connection with Tollin…something strong. He’d been searching for her, perhaps for years. Someone told him he’d find her…What did that mean? Did that mean they were meant to be? Was it destiny? And who told him?

  She cast a furtive glance at him. He was looking at her still, brown eyes deep, small wrinkles crinkling around the edges as he tried to work out what was running through her head, she supposed. He was oddly handsome, she decided, and she was ashamed she hadn’t noticed it before.

  Oh, she wanted it to be true. His life, all he did, how could she even dare picture herself as being part of it? She didn’t belong. The very idea that their completely different lives could somehow be connected—despite the circumstances that had thrown them together—was impossible. Sam now saw the expanse of the universe. Of all the planets and worlds and creatures all hovering in a vast web of dimensions, she was nothing but a mote of dust. And Tollin was one who stepped through that dust, a giant, a god. There could be no connection. The universe did not work in such ways.

  She glanced away, unable to look at him any longer. She was sure if she did not tear her eyes from him she was going to do something stupid. Their sudden proximity was becoming more apparent to her by the second.

  What the hell was wrong with her? He was older than her and not only by a few years, but a few thousand. He hunted Daemons and he wasn’t even human. So…why did this new revelation he’d just dropped suddenly open up a new aching hole inside of her? It was like becoming aware of something she could not live without, only to be told that she could never have it. In a way, that was true. How could she live in a normal world with the knowledge she had now? How was she expected to go back? She needed this life. Needed him.

  Of course, Tollin had made no impression of any such feeling.

  And that was crushing.

  Tollin must have sensed the change in her mood. He lightened his tone considerably. ‘Which reminds me.’ His brown eyes grew serious. ‘Can I take a look at it, the ring, I mean?’

  Sam bit her lip. ‘You sure? Didn’t like Marus getting near it last time.’

  Tollin smiled gently. ‘I’ll be careful. Promise.’

  He took Sam’s hand in his and directed his gaze down. His touch sent an odd flurry of nerves through her that she hadn’t prepared herself for. He traced her fingers. She could feel the rough callouses. His skin was warm. She wondered if that had to do with being part dragon. ‘Well, I don’t see any poisoning or drastic parasitical behaviour. So that’s good.’

  Sam suppressed a shudder. ‘You mean that could actually happen? What else is this thing capable of?’

  Tollin waved her away. ‘Relax, it’s behaving rather well for now. It wants to keep you alive to continue to draw energy from you. You’re like a big battery right now. No use killing off its food source.’

  She pulled a face. ‘Can’t we do anything about it?’

  ‘Afraid nothing would really do much good. It will still have a connection to you. It will still be sucking away, just not as strongly. Best to just leave it for now. But…it is interesting that it won’t release you. It must have some self-preservation instincts ingrained into it.’

  Tollin touched the stone and jerked his hand back slightly at the sound of an almost comical zapping noise. ‘Ow!’ he yelped, shaking his hand out, frowning.

  Sam watched in mute fascination as tiny webs of red light scattered under Tollin’s skin, from the fingers he’d used to touch the ring, up his arm, lighting it up like his blood was glowing. The red gem on the ring shone angrily.

  Tollin gazed at her, frowning. ‘Now what was that all about?’ he asked slowly. ‘Could it be a self-defence reflex…or…something more sinister?’

  She did not like the sound of that. ‘I wouldn’t know! You tell me!’ The words were barely past her lips as she felt something trying to force its way out of her throat. An odd sense of triumph welled in her. ‘Conformation of DNA,’ she said, confused even as the words came out of her mouth.

  ‘What?’ Tollin asked, giving her a puzzled frown.

  An explosion from the ring at that moment sent them both backwards, away from each other. Sam hit the ground hard and found herself staring dizzily up at the beautiful starry sky. Her mind whirled. Somewhere opposite her, Sam heard Tollin let out a groan. She wasn’t sure if her limbs would cooperate; she wanted to sit up, but she felt detached, changed, floating. Something was not right.

  Slowly, her body started to respond, the numb tingling in her arms and legs gradually retreating. Sam, head aching like she’d been hit with a cricket bat, sat up; a nauseous and disturbingly different feeling rolling through her. She glanced across the glossy surface and saw Tollin in much the same position, rubbing his head. He let out an appreciative exclamation, clearly feeling the same effects she was.

  A strand of thought went whirring through Sam’s head, filling her mind with strange explanations, odd theories and random thoughts she hadn’t thought herself capable of thinking.

  She pushed herself unsteadily to her feet.

  ‘What?’ Tollin said again, in a flat voice. Somehow, Sam knew what his words would be.

  ‘I feel…’

  ‘Odd,’ Tollin finished.

  Sam swallowed, nodding. Tollin ran his fingers through his hair in wild thought. Sam stood stock still. Her mind continued to flash with ideas. This wasn’t her. She couldn’t begin to come up with what she was seeing now in her head.

  And then the penny dropped, and it made her stomach crash somewhere around her feet.

  She could feel his brain racing. She could predict exactly each movement Tollin would make, what he would say. It was like re-watching a film Sam had only seen once. She recognised everything vaguely, understood the plot, but couldn’t recite it word for word.

  Tollin strode towards her in quick steps and stared down at her sharply. ‘What am I thinking right now?’ he demanded. He took her by the shoulders hard. He’d clearly come to the same conclusion as her and the sudden physical closeness sent a jarring feeling of rightness through her that was heady.

  Sam trembled beneath the strong grip of his winding fingers. ‘I dunno—’ She blinked. ‘The Chizertean war. I don’t even know what that is!’

  Tollin groaned darkly. ‘And you’re worried about if I’m going to rifle through all of those thoughts you’ve had about me. Oh, this is not good, not good at all!’

  She felt strange emotions flutter through her. And then in some sudden burst of clarity Tollin was different to her. Shining in a new light that laid bare his emotions. His very purpose for existing and Sam found it beautiful. She could see his scars and his hurt and his fear and his courage and it was staggeringly lovely.

  She felt weak. Feeling everything from Tollin at once was overwhelming. She could tell by his look—and his thoughts�
��that he felt the same.

  ‘I’ve never felt anything like this before,’ Sam said shakily. She gazed up at him. ‘What’s going on?’ Her body was starting to shake against her will, unable to handle the new intrusion. She wanted to be closer to him, as close as possible. Her brain was blinking in and out, like a signal gone bad.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tollin breathed. ‘This is a new one for me…Feeling everything about you. All of your hopes, dreams…emotions.’ He let out an unsteady gasp. ‘I don’t know how to stop it…’

  Sam hardly realised they were standing as close as they were. ‘I’m not sure I want you to.’ Her spine tightened, she couldn’t take her gaze away from his dark eyes. This was the Traveller, the man who’d been to hundreds of Realms, who’d saved millions of lives, whose memories stretched to the beginning of the worlds, she’d never felt so drawn to anyone in her life.

  ‘This has to stop. This isn’t right.’ Tollin’s nose gently brushed the side of Sam’s as they stood, breathing deeper, hands interlaced. Her lips hovered at his experimentally. Sam felt her heart pounding, and something was rushing in her, mounting till it drowned out everything that was her. Everything she felt and thought was now gone. Swallowed.

  It was flooding through her now. Exploding in brilliant colours. Faces, places, towering landscapes and vast oceans. There were triumphs and locked doors, smiles, ages upon ages. Civilisations, art and music and tragedy and extinction. Stories, inexplicable joy, unfathomable marvels, childish wonder. Terrible deeds, monsters, indescribable wealth, entire lifetimes and lurking menace and bright spots of light, rippling through time. It was the universe. All of it, cracking her skull.

  And glowing at the centre of it all, was him.

  Her senses towards Tollin had been overwhelming at first, his thoughts, emotions, everything clear to her, but now it was like being hit with a sledgehammer, and it kept on coming. Wave after wave of thought slamming into her. How was it possible for any living creature to feel this much?