Page 75 of An Empress of Earth & Darkness

Emara’s shoes could be heard on the wooden floorboards as she walked forward and stood by his youngest brother. It was clear she was in support of his secret. Somehow, she already knew.

A True Dreamer.

He had always admired that about Emara; she was unafraid to stand in adversity or on a side that felt right to her. And it seemed like her action gave his brother the courage to continue.

“I see things,” he said tiredly. “I dream of events that come true. Well, most of them, anyway. And I normally see my visions in my sleep—until now.”

A True Dreamer.

Torin had thought them to be nothing more than an old folktale or something that had disappeared with time. But as long as magical factions produced children, their enchanted blood would create all sorts of wonders. The problem came from the fact that the clans saw them as an abomination, a curse.

Torin sucked in a breath. He had no idea how to comprehend what his brother had just declared.

“A True Dreamer? As in a seer?” Gideon asked, and his voice sounded a little strangled.

“Yes.” Naya defended him quickly, pushing her shoulders back. “I have tried to protect him from your father for as long as we have known. You know what kind of reaction he would have had knowing one of his sons had more of my blood than his, more blood of Rhiannon than of Thorin. He would never accept it.” Naya shot a look at Torin.

But Torin was still trying to process it all. It felt like minutes ago he was just fighting for his life, battling his father’s fists.

This day was…unthinkable.

“What happened to you in the entertainment room was a vision?” Torin asked. “You looked…tortured.”

“Yes. It was a dream.” Kellen panted slightly.

“Why were you screaming?” Gideon asked. “Do they hurt?”

Kellen moved up in the bed so that he was sitting upright, his mother’s hand still intertwined with his own. “They don’t always hurt. Sometimes I can feel, smell, or taste things, but that is only if it’s really strong. When I was younger, they started off as dreams, but then the despicable things that started to creep into my head would come true. I would hear of it happening somewhere in the city or whispers would come from other parts of the kingdom. I tried for so long to write them off as mere coincidences, terrible accidents. I started to write them in a journal and draw what had happened, and the details were too accurate for them to be a coincidence.” He took a breath, looking at his mother’s pained face as he did. Kellen’s eyes then flickered to Torin.

“When I was little, I used to sit outside your briefings before the Selection,” he said, “so that I could hear of the tragedies that I had dreamt of just to confirm that I was some sort of freak. I was different, and I knew it. There would be nights where I would try to stay awake so that my dreams couldn’t happen just in case I was the reason bad things were happening to people. I would beg Thorin to stop them, plead with the Three-Faced God to listen, but they never did. My dreams only increased with time. It was like they wanted me to suffer. I believed the Gods hated me. They turned a blind eye on me like my own clan eventually would.” He looked down at his mother’s hand as she stroked a thumb over his own. Tears streamed down his mother’s face, and Torin choked down the buildup of emotion in his throat.

“Mother found out about my abilities after my eighth birthday. One night when I screamed and screamed and I couldn’t stop, I had to tell her my secret. I told her that the Dark Army had washed up on Tolsah Bay and slaughtered witches who belonged to the House Water. I tasted the sulphur and I felt their blood on my skin. I described every detail to her and she was convinced that I was just having a bad dream.” Emara wiped a tear from her cheek, her lip trembling. Torin found himself struggling to hold back his own tears. His baby brother had suffered all these years and he had never known a thing. Guilt ripped through him and he distributed his weight to shake it off, still trying to focus on what Kellen was saying. There would be time later for the guilt to eat him alive.

“The next day, word came from the east that what I had dreamt was no nightmare, but reality. Witches had been butchered on the beach during a summer solstice ritual; demons had killed them for sport.” Kellen shook his head. “I couldn’t tell anyone about it. Mother didn’t want anyone knowing, especially Father.” He looked at Gideon and then Torin. “She didn’t know how you would react. You might deem me unworthy of the Blacksteel name and shun me even now. My blood caused me this affliction; I did not ask for it.”

“It is not an affliction” Naya’s tears streamed from her eyes as she held her youngest son’s hand, and the lump in Torin’s throat only magnified. He shoved it down.

“It’s an incredible gift,” Emara said from beside him. “The power of Rhiannon runs in your veins, and that is not by accident.” Emara brushed back a strand of long black hair from her face. “I have been looking for someone to mentor you, but it’s hard to find someone who knows anything about seer’s magic because it is so unspoken of. But I will not give up on you. I will keep looking. We will find someone.”

“It doesn’t feel like a gift. Not when your own blood will not recognise it as a skill. True Dreamers are shamed in the hunting community and you all know it.” He looked at every hunter in the room, even Artem, who had barely moved an inch. Breighly said nothing as her eyes began to glow with a sadness he had not seen in a while. “We are deemed as cursed, bringers of bad fortune. They see it as a demobilisation of the hunting spirit, a bad omen, a weakness.”

“I do not see how you are anything but an advantage for hunters,” Emara said. “You could change how the clans hunt.” Her beautiful eyes found Torin’s face, and like always, his heart quickened. “It could change how hunters plan. If they knew where and when the darkness would strike, they could always be ahead. They could always be in a position to win against the underworld.”

She has a point, Torin thought. Her strategy for deconstructing archaic views was rather refreshing. She had an eye for change. Torin loved her rebellious streak. His smart little empress could help his clan be utterly brilliant under his watch.

“You saw what became of me when I had a vision,” Kellen cut in. “I am disoriented, I sometimes cannot see or wake myself up. I often cannot hear the world around me until the vision is through with me and I am released from its claws. And I certainly wouldn’t be able to fight should I have one whilst hunting. I would be the perfect target, the weakest of the clan.”

“And you do not know when these visions will occur?” Torin asked after pulling a hand through his hair and taking a deep breath. He had to gather himself together and think like a leader, but his mind was a whirling vortex, every emotion smashing against the inside of his head.

He was dizzy, and the thoughts of his brother hiding who he was under Viktir’s reign was even more maddening than he could have ever thought.

“I don’t.” Kellen’s head shook and he looked down at his hands. “They are normally stronger when the moon is coming into her new phase or when she is full, but I cannot know when I will see for certain.”

“Can they be controlled?” Gideon asked.

“Not really,” Naya said, giving Kellen a reprieve. “But we have been giving him an elixir that slows them since he was a child, hoping that only one or two would sneak past the enchantment every so often. We knew it was possible for him to have a Dream when awake, we just didn’t know if it would ever happen.”

“Mother’s elixirs are how I made it through the Selection,” Kellen admitted.

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