A life spent on the run, Astra understands they are hiding to save her future and possibly her life. But what 17-year-old wants to be stuck with their mom day and night jumping realms to keep them safe even if their mom has cool magical powers of a...
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(Our cast of characters)
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The ground quivering beneath me wasn't the first thing that alerted me to their presence. It was the distinctive clamoring as the metal struck against metal rang into the brisk air.
Funny how the sound carried further in cold air than warm. Maybe since the animals were in hibernation now or all the insects were dormant along with their noisy ministrations. Everything in Wintertide was silence. Pure silence.
I enjoyed the quiet. The solitude. The peace. But only because it wouldn't last long.
"Astra! We have to leave, now!" my mother, Idal, yelled as she ran from the doorway of our latest hideout. Within seconds of turning to the sound of her voice, the yellow and white flames already lapped the wooden logs and what soon would be the door, followed by the roof.
Hopefully, the fire would burn enough before they arrived and found any tangible proof.
Proof that I was still alive.
I bolted from the snowy floor with white flakes coating every visible inch of my body. Sure I was freezing, and my teeth chattered, and parts of my extremities felt like they could to fall off at any moment. But the cold was my advantage.
It helped me to concentrate and harness my power. Maybe it was my slowing pulse or the tingling sensation as the blood abandoned my fingertips and toes and traveled toward my core. All of it elevated my higher consciousness, that teetering on the edge of life and death. The between like state that allowed me to see clearly, to see everything to come.
And what I had seen by staring up at the red sun as it pulsated and beat in time with my own thundering heart was pure madness. Wars and fighting. Death and destruction. Up until recently, I only had brief peeks into the future. Nothing definite. Nothing certain. Nothing that I willingly discussed with my mother. Ever.
My body shivered automatically as I brushed away the remaining snow lingering on my pants. I should have started running in the opposite direction, but I still had time. Twenty-Two minutes to be exact.
My mother caught up to me and paused to catch her breath. She doubled over, heaving and gasping for a few fast heartbeats. "Did you know?"
Her hazel eyes avoided meeting mine. That meant she already knew my answer. It was far too easy to lie when I didn't have to see into a person's being and empathize with the disappointment attached to their thoughts. She knew better.
"Yes," I admitted, and she sighed. I didn't have to see or feel her disappointment to know. "But we still have time."
Yes, I should have told my mother after I woke that morning and described to her in full detail how over twenty of the Blood Guard would come marching into these parts of Randor in search of us. That they would capture Killian and drag him away to face punishment for being an "unregistered" Blood Reaper with no affiliation. How they would take her and me prisoner and force us to vow our fealty to the Council of Absolom.
But she was the keeper of many secrets of her own and the stealer of mine. My mother would listen to every finite detail, prodding and extracting as much information from me until the vision would break. That would lead to the intense pressure inside my head, throbbing and expanding to the point I'd scream in agony. Then I'd beg her for the elixir to make the pain stop. To make me forget. And I would forget—everything only to have to start all over again.
What was my name? My age? Where was I? What could I do? Why were we hiding? Who were they?
The answers to those six questions were scribbled on a piece of parchment shoved in my back pocket. They could only be read by me once I used my own blood to ascertain the answers. This was my life.
Only I wished it wasn't.
"Time," she forced out. She glanced over her shoulder at the burning house and glared back at me. "We would've had more time if you would have just told me." My mother's brusque tone, accompanied by her clutching onto my arm so hard it would surely bruise, proved that I had indeed succeeded in disappointing her.
She pushed me toward the escape route. This path over the past two weeks showed the wear of our frequent practices for the inevitable. For this such moment.
Stones leading to nowhere were strategically placed to allow for us to step without leaving any footprints. A broom of leaves that Killian, our fellow co-conspirator, had made rested against a downed tree trunk. Lying on top was a beige scrap of material from what appeared to be his shirt that he wore the last time I saw him. Which was yesterday, or maybe the day before that?
I shrugged her arm off me. "Where is he?"
My mother seized the stray piece of cloth, forming a fist. To the ordinary person, they wouldn't have noticed a thing. Maybe a random object of no value or glanced over it like some trash left behind. But if those who were hunting us had a skilled enough Blood Reaper with them, that same plain scrap of material could mean the death to us all by the end of the day.
The smell of burnt cloth penetrated my nose just seconds after my mother closed her eyes. Her lips moved with the slightest ministrations as she chanted the incantation. Her voice was barely above a faint whisper as she repeated the spell.
One of her many "unknown" and "undocumented" gifts, my mother—a Blood Healer, had the uncanny ability to burn things with her thoughts. That material. The house. I had even witnessed her burning a man alive after he threatened to collect the bounty on our heads.
Only she had to be careful and use her powers sparingly to avoid the energy draining from her altogether. Unlike any other Blood Code, healers had to use energy to sustain themselves. And that could only happen by stealing or borrowing from others. The horrid curse of being a Blood Healer at its finest.
She finished and opened her eyes, revealing to me the toll this round had taken. The whites surrounding her irises appeared bloodied. The same as her tears.
"Mother, I'm sorry," I said as the charred remains released from her palm, floating into the air. It was the very fine details such as this, which erased any trace of our existence. And the only reason why the three of us were still free.
Well, that was if you considered free as having to jump from realm to realm and live only day to day. All in the hopes that I could make it to next Full Blood Moon a year from now and have my reading. Then all of this would end. The running. The hiding. The unknown.
Because once that day came, I, Astra Greyson, would no longer just see everyone's past lives. I'd know everyone's futures as well.
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