Page 66 of Faerie Fate
She linked us together and unbidden, against my will, images came. Unable to be stopped. My eyes closed, but painted on the inside of my eyelids were several different scenes flashing one right after the other.
Dry peaks of sand larger than a mountain washed away under a blinding drive of torrential rains. Individual grains scattered wildly and those that weren’t gobbled by the water whipped into a driving frenzy and made the invisible wind a physical presence.
Mudslides buried waterways in rich brown muck that sucked at the banks and dissolved them, taking the trunks of old-growth trees with them in such a destructive force I knew nothing could stand against it.
A swirling cyclone the size of the Chrysler Building razed a village and cut through the main road. It took houses with it with such ease they might as well have been made of matchsticks. Roofs collapsed and brick and stone were tossed as if in a child’s tantrum.
There was a palace crafted with grains of sand rising into coral-colored skies. The golden hour. Sunlight off the sand lit the world in rainbow hues and the windows of the palace were like empty eyes staring out from the walls. It toppled, too. Delicate and fragile and erased.
Then I was back in the water beside Poppy, now up to my ribs.
Her eyes were pure white again and her fingers manacles around my wrists.
I didn’t expect her to drop, to fall and sink beneath the water, dragging me with her. She simply collapsed. Terror was bright and sharp and tasted like salt. I pulled my arm hard enough to dislocate my shoulder and still there was no getting free.
My muscles ached, lungs struggling from the tiniest sip of air I’d managed before we sank under the waves. Going down further. Faster. Swirling through terrible currents.
It was the second occasion where I almost drowned, and this time I knew I wasn’t going to be saved by Faerie. I was going to die in this prophecy, taking Poppy with me.
Chapter Nineteen
Water pulsed through my mouth and nostrils, scalding down to the bottom of my lungs. My heart skipped a beat. When it finally roared back to a normal rhythm, I came to with a start.
Instead of water, I gasped out smoky air, the lingering scent marking my chest. The scattered pieces of my brain finally found a way to work together and I shuddered back into my body, remembering where I was.
Back in the circle, with Poppy, both of us soaking wet. My clothes clung to my skin and water pooled around the bottom of the cushions.
Her white eyes glowed, stark against the darkness. The play of shadows on the sharp angles of her face scared me more than I wanted to admit.
“Hey. Hey!” I shook her, her fingers frozen around mine, but she didn’t wake immediately. “Poppy, wake up.”
I pulled at her, hoping the movement would be enough to knock her out of her trance. She rolled with the gesture. Nothing else.
She wouldn’t move, or breathe. Her muscles were as still as her fingers, and if I had to guess, I’d say she was still trapped in the vision.
How much longer would she live? Or had she drowned in the water and her body needed time to catch up?
“I need you here. Okay? Poppy,please.”
Shivering, the water hardening like frost along my skin, I tugged and managed to free one of my hands from her grip. I tapped her on the shoulder. Shook her when she failed to respond.
My teeth clacked together hard. “Come on!”
Maybe she lost herself to the prophecy and for some strange reason I’d managed to get out without her. Terror turned my tongue to stone.
If I’d gotten her killed now… What would it mean for the future?
Barbara played a huge role in everything that happened. To me, to the others. Mike wouldn’t exist. I’d never get the potion I needed to suppress my shifter side and enter the Fae Academy for Halflings. None of it.
“Please wake up.” I shook her again and, taking a chance, slapped her. Flesh on fresh echoed, absorbed by the muffled line of the circle. “Come on! Wake up for me. Don’t die in your own prophecy.”
A long pink print decorated her skin where I made contact. I clamped down on my teeth, too worried to hit her again and mark her opposite cheek.Should I call the others?
Finally, Poppy drew in a giant breath and blinked. The white glow receded, there and gone so fast I might have missed its exit if I weren’t focused. Her normal eye color returned but the hand holding mine trembled.
“Did you…slap me, Tavi?”
“I had to. What the hell was that all about?”
