Page 14 of Prophecy of Gods and Crows

“I’m not sure. I’ve had this bad feeling,” Bryn whispered as her system flooded with adrenaline.

The warning horns split open the joyous atmosphere of the night like a knife. The screams of the people matching the horns as they ran from the streets to take cover from the unknown danger.

Bryn and Niamh both turned as one toward the gate as small dust devils made their way along the street, trailing the panicked townspeople as they ran, shoving at each other like wild, mindless animals.

“Sandstorm,” Niamh whispered, her eyes focused on something past the gate. Words in another language Bryn had never heard soon left Niamh’s lips.

In her own panicked state, Bryn tried to calm her nerves, debating whether she could make it back to her apartment or if she needed to take cover with Niamh. The fact that Niamh was in a trance, staring intensely at the gate, made her hand twitch with the urge to slap Niamh out of it.

“It’s going to be a bad one. I feel it in my bones,” Niamh spoke, but Bryn wasn’t sure who she was talking to since Niamh’s eyes were glazed over.

“Sandstorm!” Justin yelled as he ran down the road toward them. “Get inside and take cover!”

The walls usually took the brunt of the weather for them, but the wind picked up as a dark cloud moved over the gate, the horns’ mournful sound chilling as the storm grew in its intensity.

They’d never had a sandstorm this intense before.

“Now!” Justin was suddenly in her face, shoving at her shoulder and pushing her and Niamh into the Sanctuary. A horrifying cloud of red dust enveloped the building right as Justin slammed the door shut behind them. The entire road engulfed in tornadic sand was the last visual she had of Saints’ Road.

“Away from the windows!” He herded them to an inner room in the Sanctuary, yelling for the others to do the same. Bryn didn’t look to see what men from town were there. She didn’t want that on her conscience, and since she was a horrible poker player, she didn’t want to pretend in public when she watched them walking with their families to church service before she turned in for the day.

Settling down in one of the supply rooms, Bryn put her head to her knees, wrapping her arms around her legs. Focusing on her breathing and not the glass breaking, Bryn worked to calm her heart rate, trying to ignore the sobs of the other women in the dark room as the glass broke and the wind howled.

Finian whined, having moved back to Justin’s side.

The only light came from the cracked door Justin looked through. He flinched every once in a while as he watched the storm bear down on their little town.

“Calm yourselves. Your yelling isn’t going to change the course of this storm,” Niamh chided, her voice barely audible over the furniture breaking outside their little room. Bryn was surprised by the calmness in Niamh’s voice as her business was being torn apart. Her whole life was in the Sanctuary.

A tingling started in Bryn’s fingers and toes, as well as the all too familiar feeling of ants under her skin. Bryn rubbed along her arms at the same time as Justin, their movements mirroring each other.

Looking to Niamh, her eyes focused on the wall as if she could see through it, as if her focus could stop the destruction, Bryn patted the woman on the shoulder before she pulled back. Her skin was growing more sensitive, and the anxiety building up inside her was becoming a raging inferno.

“I am here, come to me, my child,” Bryn heard the whispered words, and looked for who was speaking. No one else looked around for the voice; it was as if they hadn’t heard it.

Bryn was sure her heart stopped. Was this a vision? It didn’t feel like one.

When Justin looked at her, his eyes confused, she realized it wasn’t just her who had heard the whispered plea.

The distraction of Justin kept her from noticing one of the men in the room sitting too close to her, his fingers brushing hers, and she knew before it happened she was going into a fit.

Feeling it come upon her, she scooted away from him, farther into the corner of the room right as the black stole over her vision.

Chapter 6

Herworldwasblindinglybright as she opened her eyes, knowing inherently that she had been pulled into a vision. The man who had sat next to her in the Sanctuary where they were hunkered down was the town baker. Ava’s father.

The fact that he was in the brothel at all, his second wife just having had their first child together, Ava’s mother dying from the sickness, made her wish she could pull herself from the vision and slap him for being here when his wife was recovering from childbirth. She knew no one had followed her, Justin, and Niamh in. He’d been here before the storm hit.

Perhaps her “fit” had her smacking him with her seizing body. One could hope.

Bryn watched as the baker grabbed a rifle from his bakery office before running to the front of the store and looking through the window.

“You said nothing would happen with Arioch taking over!” his wife yelled from where she held a mewling newborn behind the counter. “That was the reason I didn’t fight you on it!”

Arioch taking over what? What would the scrios be taking over?

“Ted! Do something!” she turned to yell at Bryn, or Ted, the man who Bryn was looking through the eyes of. The man who was going to die. If she remembered correctly, he worked on the town’s small farm and was most likely doing a delivery to the bakery during the vision.

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