Page 72 of Unlikely Omega

There is no way we can escape on foot from the riders but if we manage to keep away until the storm hits…

“Do you see any rocky outcrop or anything that could hide us from view?” Finnen asks as the first fat drops of rain hit my face.

“I think we need to find shelter. The rain will hide us but we’ll die of the cold if we get too wet.”

“Fine. See any cave? Any shelter?”

“It’s too dark to see.” But I can hear shouts over the whistling of the wind and the patter of rain. “They’re coming after us.”

“Of course they are,” Finnen says. “Keep going.”

He pulls me along and we run down a shallow gully. This time he does stumble—he’s human after all—and I manage to grab him before he falls all the way down.

We stand together, panting, clinging to each other as the rain starts pelting down on us. Lightning flashes all around.

“There,” I say, pointing before I remember he can’t see me. Hell, even I can’t see me in this storm. “I think I see a shelter up ahead.”

The rolling clouds and flashes are reflected in the stream down below and a rocky overhang is visible to our right. I drag Finnen that way and he lets me take the lead as we skid and slip along the slippery slope to reach the shelter.

“Here.” I tug on his hand, pulling him under the overhang. It’s a good spot, the gully wall protecting us from the wind and rain, though we’re already soaked. I shudder. “So much for dry clothes.”

“What did you see?”

“A stream down below but no sign of our pursuers.”

“No, I mean on him. On the Commander. What did you see on him?”

I sit down on the cold rock and he follows suit. “I saw… diamond patterns,” I say, my voice almost drowned out by the rain. “On his back. You saw them, didn’t you? Somehow you saw them and warned him before his men saw them, too.”

“Dragon scales. They glowed. Like liquid metal.”

I swallow hard. “You said your ears were your first sign?”

“Yes.”

“Show me?”

There’s more light here than I’d expected, so when after a moment he tucks his white hair behind his ear, baring the pointed tip, it’s clearly visible.

I reach out, entranced, to touch it but he pulls his hair over it again. His expression is odd, kind of… empty. I wonder again how he ended up in the Temple.

“So each one of us has a different sign on their body marking our Fae blood?” I whisper.

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t know what signs my mother saw in me,” I whisper. “Looking back, she must have known or she wouldn’t have sent me to the Temple so young, but nobody ever mentioned anything until Councilor Kaidan. Even then, he didn’t point out anything in particular.”

“Maybe it’s so subtle nobody but your mother knew.”

Or maybe she just didn’t want me, I think, the words choking me.

“That Commander will come after us, make no mistake,” Finnen says. “He can’t leave here empty-handed and he doesn’t seem like the kind of man who will give up easily.”

“So what should we do?”

“We need to move the moment the storm abates. In fact, we should move soon no matter what.”

“Because he’ll come looking for us here, in the rain?”

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