Her Dangerous Visions (The Boy and the Beast Book 1) by Brandon Barr Page B
Authors: Brandon Barr
Ads: Link
It will be a blessing and a curse, but never forget, it is a gift, and it will save more than it will kill.
The words seared into her mind, like wood touched by a pen of smoldering iron.
Do not leave me, she pleaded, sensing the warm fire of the Maker’s presence departing her flesh and bones.
Though I go, I will be present. We are on the other side of everyplace, so that you are never unseen or unheard by us. The Faraway is closer than your next breath. That is where we live.
And it was with that last word that she felt the side of her face burst in warmth, as if the Maker’s hand had cupped her cheek. When she opened her eyes, sunlight was pouring down through the trees. Fluttering down in the shafts of light was the blue butterfly.
As the warmth of that powerful memory faded, Winter stood on the boulder staring out at the forest. The woods and rocks surrounding her regained more of their splendor, and the clouded sky above held promise of a calling so large she could not fathom it. On her shoulders were heroes, and under her feet was the life of a Beast.
She trusted she would discover what that meant.
One thing she promised herself; to somehow discern how to use her gift and avert the next dire vision, whatever it be. She would act on every trivial vision she had and learn from them. If she could save a bird from a toad, it would be a step toward fulfilling her deeper purposes. Those that Leaf had spoken of. Her destiny.
Winter picked up the summons beside her and took one last glance at the sky.
You made me a seer. Now make me see what to do.
CHAPTER 11
AVEN
The footfalls on the ground above grew louder. Aven waited for his sister's welcome face to peer over the lip of the hole. Before Winter had risen that morning, a horseman found him repairing a trellis in the vineyard and threw the summons at his feet. The message was simple and open-ended.
Baron Rhaudius requests the presence of:
Winter, the farmer, daughter of Amethyst,
and Aven, the farmer, son of Lynx,
at the hour of nightfall this evening.
He had placed the summons on the supper table for Winter to find, then left. The rest of the morning was spent where he now sat, in Harvest’s hovel. Only six months ago he had stumbled from the Baron’s fortress back to this very place to find wisps of smoke and ash rising from the hole.
He’d lain on the lip and finally fell into tormented sleep. At daybreak he had spotted the bodies inside. All had turned to charred bones in the inferno of the root fire.
The last position of each person in that hovel still came to Aven some nights; one skeleton embracing another. His heart was a mountain of flesh and stone. When the softer part clawed itself free he would lie flat on the ground and imagine Harvest, or his mother and father, as if they were alive, and experience all over again the pain of their loss. But eventually the hardness would bury the tears, like a rockslide, hiding away the raw living thing lying beneath and then he would simply hate himself for what he did. For going out that night and not listening to Winter.
For good or for bad, to tell is to change the future. By telling, we may bring it to pass.
Winter should never have told him. Her visions and warnings had stirred up so much fear inside him, how could he have stayed home that night?
Sometimes he dreamt of sneaking into Winter’s room and taking her tiny blue-winged pet outside, crushing it in his hands, and then hiding the remains under a rock. He hated the sight of it nestled in her hair, or clinging to her face as she went about the house, or how she would bring it to the marketplace in a glass jar. The insect never left her presence.
Why she continued to trust the Makers, he did not fathom. Any being who created a world as cruel as Loam deserved hatred, not devotion.
Pebbles fell from the lip of earth overhanging Aven’s shaded alcove inside the scorched hovel. The face that appeared was not Winter’s. Large,
The words seared into her mind, like wood touched by a pen of smoldering iron.
Do not leave me, she pleaded, sensing the warm fire of the Maker’s presence departing her flesh and bones.
Though I go, I will be present. We are on the other side of everyplace, so that you are never unseen or unheard by us. The Faraway is closer than your next breath. That is where we live.
And it was with that last word that she felt the side of her face burst in warmth, as if the Maker’s hand had cupped her cheek. When she opened her eyes, sunlight was pouring down through the trees. Fluttering down in the shafts of light was the blue butterfly.
As the warmth of that powerful memory faded, Winter stood on the boulder staring out at the forest. The woods and rocks surrounding her regained more of their splendor, and the clouded sky above held promise of a calling so large she could not fathom it. On her shoulders were heroes, and under her feet was the life of a Beast.
She trusted she would discover what that meant.
One thing she promised herself; to somehow discern how to use her gift and avert the next dire vision, whatever it be. She would act on every trivial vision she had and learn from them. If she could save a bird from a toad, it would be a step toward fulfilling her deeper purposes. Those that Leaf had spoken of. Her destiny.
Winter picked up the summons beside her and took one last glance at the sky.
You made me a seer. Now make me see what to do.
CHAPTER 11
AVEN
The footfalls on the ground above grew louder. Aven waited for his sister's welcome face to peer over the lip of the hole. Before Winter had risen that morning, a horseman found him repairing a trellis in the vineyard and threw the summons at his feet. The message was simple and open-ended.
Baron Rhaudius requests the presence of:
Winter, the farmer, daughter of Amethyst,
and Aven, the farmer, son of Lynx,
at the hour of nightfall this evening.
He had placed the summons on the supper table for Winter to find, then left. The rest of the morning was spent where he now sat, in Harvest’s hovel. Only six months ago he had stumbled from the Baron’s fortress back to this very place to find wisps of smoke and ash rising from the hole.
He’d lain on the lip and finally fell into tormented sleep. At daybreak he had spotted the bodies inside. All had turned to charred bones in the inferno of the root fire.
The last position of each person in that hovel still came to Aven some nights; one skeleton embracing another. His heart was a mountain of flesh and stone. When the softer part clawed itself free he would lie flat on the ground and imagine Harvest, or his mother and father, as if they were alive, and experience all over again the pain of their loss. But eventually the hardness would bury the tears, like a rockslide, hiding away the raw living thing lying beneath and then he would simply hate himself for what he did. For going out that night and not listening to Winter.
For good or for bad, to tell is to change the future. By telling, we may bring it to pass.
Winter should never have told him. Her visions and warnings had stirred up so much fear inside him, how could he have stayed home that night?
Sometimes he dreamt of sneaking into Winter’s room and taking her tiny blue-winged pet outside, crushing it in his hands, and then hiding the remains under a rock. He hated the sight of it nestled in her hair, or clinging to her face as she went about the house, or how she would bring it to the marketplace in a glass jar. The insect never left her presence.
Why she continued to trust the Makers, he did not fathom. Any being who created a world as cruel as Loam deserved hatred, not devotion.
Pebbles fell from the lip of earth overhanging Aven’s shaded alcove inside the scorched hovel. The face that appeared was not Winter’s. Large,
Similar Books
