by Raven Dark
Footsteps sounded outside the tree before Hawk stuck his head in. “Doc? What’s wrong?”
“Hawk, I need you and Setora to find this.” When Hawk came to his side, he showed us both the page he’d been looking at.
The image showed a small mushroom with the word eldabella under it in bold. I felt a rush of adrenaline. Steel was going to be okay. If we could get him whatever that mushroom was, he’d be okay again.
Doc handed Hawk a small medical pouch, and then the end of my leash.
‘’How much do you need?” Hawk’s eyes looked brighter than they had since Steel had fallen ill. “Those things grow everywhere around here. I saw them in patches outside the camp.”
“Two or three of those mushrooms should do the job but bring me at least a dozen just in case something goes wrong and I need more.”
Hawk nodded and took my hand, heading for the entrance.
“Setora. Hawk.”
When we both turned, Doc’s face was solemn. “Steel’s liver is shutting down slowly, but that could change. There’s no way to tell how much time we have. I’ll need a few hours to prepare the medicine, so you’ll have to hurry.”
“We will, Doc,” Hawk promised.
“And Setora?” Doc added when I started with Hawk out of the tree. He waited until I faced him again. “He’s going to be okay. Promise.”
I nodded and smiled—really smiled—for the first time in days. “Yes, sir.”
* * *
As soon as Hawk and I left the infirmary, Hawk took an unlit torch from a nearby tree and led me over to the campfire. I was still smiling, excitement rushing through me as he lit the end of the torch.
With the morning light still low and dimmed by the overhead canopy, most of the torches were still lit about the camp. We’d need the extra light when looking for mushrooms that grew as small and close to the ground as the one in that picture.
“Thank the Maker these mushrooms grow here. Do you think Steel’s going to be alright now?”
“I’ve never doubted Doc before, Kitten. I knew Steel would get better. I’m just glad Doc figured out what was wrong with him, even if I don’t understand it.”
“I’m guessing Doc wanted you to look for the eldabella because you’re familiar with medicinal herbs?”
“I know some.” Hawk led me out toward the edge of the camp, holding the torch in one fist. “Yantu warriors spend a lot of time while in training learning about herbs and other natural medicines.”
“Ah. Hard to believe a mushroom can heal someone as big as Steel.” I wished Damien’s tutors had included more than the basic lessons about healing herbs and medicines.
“It’s not the mushroom itself Doc needs. I’ll explain what I know and show you once we find them.”
We walked through the thick brush a few minutes from camp, Hawk playing the light of the torch over the ferns and patches of holly. “For now, I want you to tell me about your dreams.”
Nervousness crawled up my spine. The way everyone had looked at me when I’d told them about the feeling I’d had about Steel… My men had repeatedly made it clear nothing would change, but I couldn’t help expecting that I’d tell them the wrong thing and it would be too much for them.
“I don’t remember the dream I had earlier,” I hedged.
Hawk squeezed my wrist. “Then tell me about the one you had before, the one about Steel.”
When I said nothing, he tugged the end of the leash until I was pressed against him. He tipped my chin up with his fingers. “What are you afraid of, Kitten?”
The commanding look in his eyes seemed to pull the words out of me. How could I deny this man anything?
“I don’t want you and the others to treat me differently when you…when you realize how defective I am.”
He arched a brow and his arm went around me, holding me tight. “Hey. Look at me. That’s not going to happen. You hear me?”
I couldn’t help a smile at his unconditional acceptance. “Yes, Master.”
Hawk patted my ass, kissed my forehead, then continued to search the brush as he talked. One hand held up the torch, the other gripping my wrist firmly. His possessive hold grounded me, reminding me of his ownership.
“You belong to me, to the Four, to the Legion. I cannot help you if you don’t tell me what’s happening with you. Trust your master to keep you and give you what you need.”
I bit my lip as warmth spread through me at the promise in his words. Warmth that mixed with fear. There was nothing to do but trust him.
“Master—” But before I could finish, Hawk paused, shining the torchlight over something a few feet to my left.
“Hold that thought.” He led me over to a willow tree where the thick fronds grew low to the ground. Hawk ducked under a place where the fronds where shorter, exposing a patch of mushrooms. “Here. These are what we want.”
He squatted under the curtain of long leaves, and I did the same at his side. At Hawk’s feet, clusters of mushrooms with bright red caps grew only a few centimeters off the ground, some of them a little taller. Little flecks of blue decorated the caps, glowing with natural light that reminded me of certain scorpions in the desert.
“They’re kind of pretty. Such a bright red. Those lights look like fireflies.”
Hawk hummed in agreement. “Hold this, Kitten.” He handed me the torch. “Give me some light.” He took his blade from the sheath at the side of his belt.
I held the torch above the cluster, illuminating the mushrooms for him.
After cutting the first mushroom, he held it up to the light.
“See these luminescent specks?” He pointed to the glowing spots on the mushroom caps. “Those spots are what Doc needs for the tonic. He’ll scrape off the specks and add compounds to them until a new fungus produces the drug Doc needs. The end result is called botricillin. Those specks are only on the eldabella mushroom. The medicinal properties of that byproduct are what will save Steel.”
I nodded, taking the mushroom gently from him, inspecting its gorgeous cap while he cut another.
“We have to be careful to keep the caps whole so that Doc can gather as much of specks as possible,” Hawk continued. He held a small cap gently and cut the stem nearly at the soil. Then he took out the pouch Doc had given him and slipped the mushroom carefully into it before taking the one in my hand and doing the same with it. “It’ll take about eight hours after Doc mixes everything together before he can use it.”
“There’s no way to speed up the process?”
“No.” He cut another mushroom and added it to the pouch. “Use it too early, and it will make Steel sicker. Use it too late, and it does nothing. I think it’s a half-hour window or so that Doc has where it will work. While it’s curing, there’s nothing to do but wait.”
“I see.”
“It’ll take me a few minutes to gather enough mushrooms. I’m waiting, Kitten.”
For me to tell him about the dream. I swallowed, forcing myself to think about the images that still filled my mind whenever I thought about the nightmare that had haunted me the night we’d saved Emmy from the Dregs.
“Every dream, even the one I had about Steel, starts the same way. I’m in a garden. The garden is always the same. It’s beautiful, always perfect.”
Hawk paused before cutting another mushroom and gave me a curious look. “A garden? Perfect how?”
“I’m not sure exactly. It just always feels perfect.”
He cut the mushroom and added it to the others. “Go on. What else? Tell me more about the garden. How does it make you feel?”
I shrugged, unsure why I suddenly felt uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I feel like it’s my place. Like I want to stay there forever.”
He glanced at me again, one brow raised, but I couldn’t tell what that expression might mean.
“It doesn’t make sense, Master. I’ve had the dream a lot, and I always feel the same at first. Like I don’t want to leave.”
“At first? Th
e feeling changes?”
“Yes.”
“What happens then?”
“After I initially enter the garden, the dream is always different.” I took a breath. “The last time, Steel was there.” I shivered at the memory of what followed.
“What was he doing?”
“He was reading, Master. But he was different.”
Hawk waited for me to go on.
“Steel’s still learning how to read. But in the dream, he was reading as if he’d been doing it his whole life.”
“What was he reading?”
“A story I read to him. But he changed some of the words.”
Hawk stopped and took my hand. “Something scares you about what you saw. What is it?”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. Hawk’s grip tightened a little, focusing me. I opened my eyes.
“While Steel was reading, that’s when the feeling changed. The garden wasn’t perfect anymore. There was someone there who shouldn’t have been.”
“Someone? Who, Kitten?”
“I don’t know who it is.”
“What happens next?”
I shook my head. “Steel stopped reading, and then…” I swallowed. “Then his face changed.”
“Changed how?”
“It turned yellow. Like it is now, but much worse. Like he was dying. Then his face was covered in blood. He asked me if I wanted him to die.”
Hawk’s eyes snapped to mine, his brows high. “He asked you if you wanted him to die? That’s exactly what he said?”
I thought I knew what he was thinking. Steel had asked me if I wanted him to die in a dream, and hours later, not only was he in a situation where he could have died, but now we still might lose him.
“Yes, Master. He said, ‘Do you want me to die?’” My voice almost broke, saying those dreaded words.
“Hmm. Interesting.” Hawk continued to work, his head down. “Go on. What happened next?”
I was leaving something out, but I couldn’t remember what it was. When I tried to retrieve the memory, it slipped away like fog through my fingers.
“Someone was in the garden who shouldn’t be there. When I tried to get Steel to leave with me, that’s when he changed. His face was all bloody. Then he started choking me. Only it wasn’t him. It was, but it wasn’t.”
This time when Hawk looked at me, his eyes searched my face. “What makes you think it wasn’t Steel?”
“It wasn’t.”
“You said his face changed. Changed into what?”
My breathing quickened as my mind flickered with the memory. The memory that always filled me with bone-chilling terror.
“Into whoever was in my garden. Whoever wasn’t supposed to be there. I can’t ever see its face. It has no features. I don’t understand it, Master. It makes no sense.”
Hawk turned to me and cupped my nape with his warm palm. “Don’t worry about whether it makes sense. Tell me what happened next”
I sighed, shaking. “Steel was choking me, then he became that face I couldn’t see. And then I woke up, and you were there, shaking me.”
“You weren’t aware you were scratching me, then? You didn’t see me in the dream at all?”
I thought I knew why he asked that. The last conversation I’d had before the dream had been with Hawk, an admittedly nightmarish discussion in which he’d told me about his monster of a father murdering his mother. He expected the conversation to trigger some of the elements of the dream. When I’d awakened and blurted out to him that I’d been choked, he’d said he shouldn’t have told me about his father.
“No, Master. You weren’t in it at all.”
“And you don’t have any idea who the faceless person was?”
“None, Master. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
He massaged my nape. “The Yantu believe that all dreams have a purpose. They are the paths to knowledge. Dreams tell us things we need to know, things that, for whatever reason, we can’t face while awake. Everything in them happens for a reason, and everything makes sense once we discover that purpose. We’ll figure this out.”
I drew strength from his touch, from the reassurance and the calm in his eyes. From the absence of anything that suggested he was afraid of what I could do.
“I think the purpose of this dream was obvious, Master. It was my mind’s way of telling me Steel was in trouble. But it was more than a dream. From the moment I had it, I had that feeling I told all of you about last night. That feeling that something terrible was going to happen to him. I knew.”
His chest rose and fell on a big breath. “Well…”
“How can that happen, Master? How could I know something is going to happen before it does?”
But I knew the answer. It buzzed through my thoughts, larger than life and terrifying. I knew the same way I could sense the minds of other Violets.
He gave a slight shrug. For a long time, he didn’t reply, only cutting the last few mushrooms and putting them in the pouch. Worry mounted with his silence until he stood, tied the drawstring on the pouch to the side of his belt, then pulled me gently to my feet.
“Dreams are strange things.” He took the torch from me. “It’s hard to know what they mean without closer examination.”
“Master. Could I really have been having a premonition about Steel dying?”
“Perhaps.” He walked with me back toward the camp, his calm acceptance washing over me. I loved that about him. “Perhaps as a Violet, you can sense things others cannot.”
I shuddered. I didn’t want to be different. I just wanted to be part of the Legion, part of the family I’d somehow found with them, and not always haunted by the notion that I wasn’t really one of them.
Hawk must have felt my shudder because he squeezed my hand and continued.
“Your dreams may not necessarily stem from anything mystical. My tai dan—my Yantu master—would say some people have the ability to tap into parts of the brain others cannot, making them uncommonly perceptive. Parts of the mind that pick up on things others can’t see. Violets may simply have more advanced brains. That would allow you to detect something off with Steel while we could not.”
I supposed that made sense in a way, but somehow I knew there was more to it.
“But what about the rest of the dream, Master? The face I can never see? And why would I dream about Steel choking me, and then he’d become that face?”
Hawk’s thumb stroked my hand. “I know it’s frightening. But the answer may be a lot less sinister than you think. The face could represent the face of someone you’re too afraid to see. Steel would never choke you, never harm you. But the face you can’t see could belong to someone who would, someone who scares you, so much you won’t allow yourself to see him. Your subconscious could be trying to warn you about someone who is dangerous. Steel may have become him simply because you were thinking about Steel when you went into the dream.”
“There’s more to it, Master. I can feel it.”
“You’re under a lot of stress, Kitten. A lot had happened since before that dream. The way the owner of that fueling station died. The Dreg attack. Even the things I told you about my father. All things to bring nightmares.”
“No, Master. Don’t blame yourself for telling me. I’m glad you shared such a difficult thing with me.”
His mouth curved in a smile, and he lifted my hand, kissing my knuckles.
“I don’t think what happened before the dream had anything to do with it, Master. I don’t think it was just a dream at all.”
“Whatever the case, I may have a way to help you stop them. But first, we need to figure out why you’re having them.”
“How?”
“The Yantu also believe it’s important to analyze our dreams, to find answers, sometimes to questions we don’t even know we’re asking. There are techniques they have for both analyzing dreams and for keeping them at bay. I will teach you the same technique I use for myself.”
/>
We’d returned to the camp, but I’d been so caught up in our conversation, I didn’t even realize it until we stood at the entrance to the infirmary. At his last words, I widened my eyes.
“You’re going to show me a Yantu technique?” A mix of trepidation and fascination hit me. “Is that legal? To teach a woman a technique used by warriors?”
His yellow eyes flashed with amusement. “I will only teach you how to deal with the dreams. It won’t be easy, Kitten. Whatever your subconscious is trying to show you, it may be something you’re so terrified of that you’re blocking yourself from seeing it. What I will show you will force you to face that fear and the man who triggers it. You will probably see things that aren’t going to be pleasant.”
I gulped. That faceless person, whoever it was, scared me to my marrow. What if it turned out to be Damien? I shivered.
Finally seeing whoever it was and getting some answers was worth the fear. And at the same time, knowing that the dreams weren’t yet another sign I was some kind of freak, gave me solace.
A more advanced brain. That wasn’t so bad, was it?
Not if the dreams were nothing more than what Hawk thought.
“I can handle it, Master. I have to if I want answers or if I want it to stop.”
Hawk squeezed my nape one last time. “Good girl. I promise I will be with you the whole time. Now, let’s get this medicine to Steel.”
“Yes, let’s, Master.”
Steel was going to be all right. I let that knowledge grow, let it wash away my own fear of whatever lay hidden in the secrets of my mind.
We joined Doc at Steel’s side, and Hawk handed him the medicine pouch. Steel still lay motionless, except for the rapid motion of his eyes behind his lids and the slow, even rise and fall of his chest.
Was his skin more yellow than before?
“Perfect, Hawk.” Doc looked over the mushrooms, taking one out and holding it up. “Yes, that’s perfect. Setora, go find Crash.” He took up a measuring beaker and handed it to me. “Get him to fill this with sugar.”
“Sugar, sir?”