Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
“You’re clammy.” His brow knits. “Everything all right?”
Go figure he immediately asks about me.
“I had a bad dream, too.” I shrug. “Must be the storm.”
“Must be.” His gaze flickers past me toward the window. “Come here.” He pulls me closer, then lays us down to face each other. A second later, he draws the sheet—but not the blanket—over us and settles his hand on my hip. “Tell me about yours.”
I tuck the sheet under my arm and slide my other hand under my pillow. “It’s the same one I’ve had since Resson.”
“Same one?” He brushes my hair back over my shoulder. “You told me you had bad dreams but never said they repeated.”
“I have a recurring nightmare. It’s nothing.” Thunder booms in the distance, and he stays quiet, waiting for me to continue. “It’s usually in a field, and there’s a battle in the distance. I can hear Andarna scream but I can’t get to her.” My throat tightens, and I lift my hand to his chest. “The Sage is there, and he always levitates me like I’m nothing heavier than a pocket watch. And I can’t kick, or scream, or move. I’m just stuck there as he threatens me.”
He tenses. “You’re sure it’s the Sage?”
I nod. “He held the Sword of Tyrrendor to my throat after demanding I bring him something. It’s like my subconscious is trying to warn me that they’re going to use you against me.”
“What else?” His heart starts to pound beneath my fingers.
I blink, trying to remember. “I can’t explain how I know, since I’ve only ever seen it from a distance, but the last couple of times, we’ve been near Draithus.”
“Are you sure?” His eyes widen. “What did it look like?”
“It’s usually pretty dark, but I could make out tall city walls on a raised plateau, and a central, spiraling tower.”
“That’s Draithus.” His breathing picks up again.
“What’s wrong?” I slide my hand to the side of his neck.
“What else?” He palms my hip.
He’s oddly intense about this, but if it helps him talk through whatever plagued him while he slept, then I’ll play along. “Tonight was…weird. Different.”
“How?”
“When he dropped me, I had this second where I thought about channeling from the earth, and when I looked down…” My gaze slides to his relic. “I had a relic on my left wrist, right where yours all start. And my hand didn’t look like mine. Now that I’m thinking about it, it looked like…yours. Who knows. What was yours about?”
He stares at me silently, and worry creeps up my spine.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because it’s my hand.”
My fingers slip off his neck. “I just said that.”
He sits up and I mirror the motion, holding the sheet to my chest. “It’s my hand,” he repeats. “You were in my dream.”
• • •
It’s not possible, is it?
Two hours later, I’ve told him about every dream I can remember with the Sage, and Xaden’s had every single one.
There has to be a reasonable explanation.
“You think we’re sharing the same dream?” I ask slowly, sitting in the middle of our bed with a blanket wrapped over my shoulders, watching him pace the short length of our bedroom in his sleeping pants.
The move reminds me of Sgaeyl on Hedotis.
Is sharing dreams even possible? Some effect of our bond?
“No. They’re my dreams.” He rubs the skin beneath his lower lip. “I’ve had them at least once a week since Resson, and more frequently since Basgiath, but I almost never realize they’re nightmares when I’m in them. When I do, I wake up feeling like someone was there with me, watching.” He looks over at me and pauses his steps. “Like tonight.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” I tug the blanket closer. “I’ve had the dream on nights you aren’t with me. Nights you were hours away.”
“Maybe it’s the bond.” He leans back against our dresser. “But they’re definitely my dreams. You’ve never been to Draithus, and that scenario…it’s exactly what happened on the edge of the river when I fought him at Basgiath.”
I blink. He never talks about that.
“The dark wielder Andarna scorched behind the school pulled the same move.” I tilt my head. “But that dark wielder wasn’t him. Do you know what the dream’s about? What he wants you to bring to him? Because it’s all vague to me, like I’m walking in mid-conversation…” My words die as my mind flies through the possibility that he’s right, no matter how impossible it is.
“Because you are.” Xaden lifts his brows. “And he wants me to deliver you.”
“They have their own lightning wielder,” I argue like I can reason with Xaden’s subconscious.
“But it’s my nightmare, and I only have one you,” he says. “It’s getting harder and harder not to go to Draithus just to prove to myself that it’s all in my head.” His eyes flare, then narrow. “But it shouldn’t be in yours. Has it ever happened with anyone else?”