The Shadow Kingdom

Chapter 26iii

When we re-enter Mumbai, Anessa doesn't take me straight to the airport. We stop in a dark alley in the middle of the city. "What are we doing here?" I ask.

Anessa shuts off the engine. Our surroundings are unwelcoming to say the least. The narrow street is filled with half-naked children and teenage boys carrying machetes. The car we're driving and the fact that we're both women mean that we're practically asking for a carjacking or worse. "Anessa, why are we here? This looks like a pretty bad neighbourhood."

"Relax. No one's going to try anything." Right, of course not. Her father is the great Samir Hassan, and if necessary, she could scare them off with a small earthquake. Anessa opens the center compartment and takes out a small, glass salve container. Inside is a brownish, powdery substance. "I'm sorry, just give me a second. I need a fix really badly."

"Oh my god, is that opium?" I startle. Anessa looks at me with the same demeaning expression that everyone in the Shadow Kingdom gives me when I'm startled by what they consider to be normal. I simply nod and sit back in my seat. I've gotten used to it.

"This'll just take a couple minutes." She drops some of the powder into a pipe and heats it up with a lighter. I have never done drugs in my life, and I'm not about to start now, so I just wait for Anessa to finish. "This isn't regular opium either; it's the high quality shit."

"I'm sure it is." I deliberately tried to make my tone equally demeaning.

"I'm not kidding. It's another one of the great things that House Claudius invented." I tilt my head toward Anessa with the faintest amount of interest. "We call it Providentia. It's a magical form of opium that allows the user to see visions of the present and future. I use it sometimes to enhance my remote vision. Feel free to try some if you like; it might take the edge off."

I've been a perfectly good schoolgirl my entire life – no sex, no alcohol, and definitely no drugs. Right up until the day I met Adrian... "Is it addictive?" I ask.

Anessa chuckles. "No more so than regular opium." She closes her eyes as the Providentia takes effect. The stupid grin on her face makes it clear that she is high as a kite. After a few long minutes of boredom and no longer able to endure the heat, I decide why the hell not. I borrow her opium pipe and light myself a quick fix.

The effect is slow at first, but I soon feel as though I am flying, literally. My spirit leaves my body, and a blinding light consumes the world around me.

The first vision that appears is one of Adrian and me. My heart races, and I smile from ear to ear when I realize it is the two of us on our wedding day. He is standing at the altar in all his regal glory, and I am wearing the most elegant wedding dress ever created while walking down the aisle inside a large church. The path is littered with flower petals, and the sunlight inundates the massive chapel through impressive, arch-shaped windows. I cannot make out any of the faces in the crowd, but I know that there's a full house.

The vision disappears before I reach the end of the aisle, and another one quickly takes its place. In this one, I see two children, a boy and a girl. They're both around six years old, and they're running through an open field together. They look blissfully happy together, and so do I as I watch them play. Are these my children?

And one more vision bombards me. Adrian is sitting at the head of a large table with me beside him. We are on the top floor of a very tall skyscraper. I look out the window, and I see that it's New York City. Adrian is addressing a group of seemingly powerful men and women. He has ascended to become king. And I am his queen.

"Scarlett? Scarlett!" I am reluctantly pulled back to reality by Anessa's voice. "Wow, you must have really liked what you saw. You're drooling."

Indeed, my entire face is covered in my own fluids. My head is drenched in sweat, and my saliva flows all the way down to my neck. "You have no idea." I reply with a mesmerized grin on my face.

Anessa's lips are in a flat line. "You would be wise to forget everything you just saw." I stare at her in confusion. "It may or may not actually happen."

"What do you mean?" I sit up straight and wipe my face clean. "You said that Providentia shows me my future."

"It shows you what could have been the future. The act of seeing the future changes the future. There is no true fate in this world except the ones that we create."