Page 124 of Of Serpents and Ruins
Except Elias.
Elias remained outside the dance circle, his knee propped up and his sketchbook against his leg. The contemplative smile and slight frown on his face contradicted one another, and his eyes… There was something odd there. He’d angled himself away from everyone and put his back to one of the stacks of boxes so that unless someone climbed up on top of the crates, no one could see his work.
We seers did require privacy. It wasn’t easy to process what flashed into our minds and discern what our sight told us, but some part of me wanted to know. I craved the knowledge. It tugged at me as my dread increased.
What was he drawing? Was he seeing something?
Stop thinking about that.
I dragged my hand through my hair, pressing it back from my sweaty face.
"What are you thinking about?" Elias called to me from his seated position.
I strode over, arms still crossed, fingers digging into my biceps. "Just everything."
"Hm." His eyebrow flicked upward. "That’s quite a lot."
"You aren’t dancing."
"Not really in the mood tonight," he said with a faint smile, "but I may take a walk to clear my head."
He stood. As he did, his sketchbook dropped, and a vivid sketch in Auntie Runa's colors slid out, a picture of a couple descending into the heart of the Ember Lord's Crest, swallowed up by lava and clinging to one another as they died.
I gasped, frozen.
That…that was Auntie Runa’s vision.
Elias's gaze snapped up to mine. He shook his head as he grabbed up the book. Other pages slid out.
I couldn't tear my eyes away. It felt as if we had become a world all alone from the rest and not in a good way. "Elias."
He shook his head. "It's not what you think." He sounded miserable, his words soft and forlorn, almost drowned out by the drums.
"Then what is it? Why did you take Auntie Runa’s sketch?"
"To see if there was any way for me to disprove it or to see something beyond it," he said tightly. He pressed his hand over it, his brow pinching as if he sought to block it. "I have tried…I have tried so hard to see some way around it. There has to be a meaning in it other than the obvious…"
My head spun. "I wasn’t aware you could do that," I said, my voice shaking.
"My abilities have been changing," he admitted reluctantly. "They’re expanding. I can…I can do and see more than ever before, but it's dreadful." He glanced around the camp, his hand gripping the back of his neck as if afraid that someone would overhear. "I can't explain it exactly," he whispered, "but it's intense. There are periods when I see so much and then others where there's nothing." He placed the book in my hands.
My breaths sharpened. Was he really giving this to me? I’d always felt reluctant to let anyone look at any of my drawings and sketches. "Did you tell Auntie Runa?"
He nodded, his mouth pinched. "She said to embrace the gift but remember its weight."
I still held the book, not turning through the pages despite the curiosity burning in me. It was so heavy in my hand, and he was willing to let me look. All I had to do was ask.
But Elias… His guidance hadn't always been good. My instincts weren't always good either, but I knew to question them. I had to question his as well.
Yet the curiosity burned.
Elias continued, softer now, "I had been having strange visions of the end of all. I wanted to see whether it was the same as what she saw."
My body tensed, my lips pressing into a tight line. I shouldn't ask.
"Do you want to know?" His gaze remained fixed on the ground.
My mouth had gone dry. I wanted to shake my head as the drums beat on and on, to tell him no, of course not. To know what might be could lock a person into that path. It was a heavy burden, and I didn't need more burdens. Did it make a difference after all that we had learned?
