Falling Skyward

Chapter Forty-Three: Melting Tension

Lana gasped awake, glad to be in another world, another life. She clutched at her chest, feeling her heart pound. But soon, the jolting feeling of being violently pulled from a dream was replaced by a general unsettlement. Two eyes watched her from the corner silently.

"Was it Gailen again?" Lana couldn't see Taren's facial expressions. His eyes were lost in shadow. The two lay on cots far from each other in the vacant medical ward.

Lana shook her head, then stopped. "Well, I guess he was a part of it. I dreamed of the night he was born."

"Dreams tend to intensify the closer you get to the shadow realm. Some think shadoweaters are the source of all nightmares. They weave them, sending them to us so they can feed off our fear. That's why those living near the borders of the Shadow Lands experience more severe night terrors. But you, it seems, have no problem drawing nightmares no matter where you are."

Taren's tone was ominous, and he seemed strangely distant. Lana felt a chill.

"Well then, who weaves the good dreams? It seems I must talk with them."

"That's something we'd all like to know."

The silence closed in. The darkness seemed much more oppressive here beneath the earth.

Her mind caught on a subject that had been troubling her for several days, gnawing at the corners of her mind. "Why does Dawson hate the prophesy so?"

"What?" Taren's voice was a hoarse bark, but Lana couldn't see his face to interpret the tone.

"The one about the heir from two kingdoms, the one who will bring peace."

Taren leaned forward, and Lana could see utter darkness reflected in his eyes.

"Who told you about that?"

"Dawson, but he seemed reticent. I don't know why, but our conversation keeps coming back to my mind, like a familiar song I just can't quite remember. Why was he so troubled when he spoke of it?"

"It is because that is the same prophecy that drove his mother mad and his sister to isolation and death."

Lana sensed the raw emotion emanating from Taren, but she couldn't suppress her surprise. "How could a prophecy hold such terrible power?"

"Because people are superstitious. Prophecies only hold the power we give to them, and our people clung to those legends with such blind fidelity we were willing to destroy lives to see it fulfilled."

"How is that possible?"

Taren paused, letting the silence tense and stretch, before adding, "When the foretold sign of the soother was approaching, the king of the Altymians married the princess of Askendia, an Imaman. Everyone assumed their first-born child to be the one from the prophecy. But then, they had a daughter."

"Why would that matter?"

"The child of the prophecy was to be the heir of two kingdoms, but the Altymians believe only a male can be an heir, where the Imaman have no such restrictions. The child was to be the heir of the Imaman only. His mother and sister couldn't bear the shame. That's why Dawson hates it."

"She was the one you loved." The truth hit Lana with such clarity, she didn't need a reply. And Taren didn't give one.

Lana knew she should be silent. She should leave Taren alone with his grief. She should close her eyes and pretend to sleep. But she had never been good at living up to others' expectations. "Is that why you've avoided me? Because you are ashamed you showed me your feelings for her? Is that why you've hated me ever since we kissed?" The defiance and anger were apparent in Lana's voice.

"What?"

Lana couldn't understand why, but the heartbreak of Taren's story cut through her, adding to the terror and grief of her dream. And the confusion and avoidance building between her and Taren was too much to process at one time. Lana jumped up from her bed, searching for the door, needing to leave, needing answers.

"Lana, wait. What are you doing?" Lana's hand had just closed over the crease in the cave wall that concealed a doorknob when she felt Taren's arms close over her own. He grabbed her shoulders, spinning her around.

"What are you doing?"

"Please, just let me leave. I need to walk. I need to clear my head."

"Not until you explain what you mean."

"Could I have made it any plainer? You've ignored me since the night we . . . You have hardly even spoken to me these last few days, and I can feel your resentment toward me growing. I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have asked to see those memories, and I should be grateful for all you've done for me and for Gailen, but I just need to go."

Taren brought one of his hands to rub the crease between his eyebrows, closing his eyes. "Lana, I'm sorry. I . . . I've been so distant today because I worried I had taken advantage of you, showing you all those memories, sharing those feelings without knowing how you truly felt. I didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable, to overstep my bounds or make you feel as though you owe me anything . . . I mean, traveling alone with you, it takes all my strength to keep my distance."

"But what about since we've reached this place? You've been more than just aloof. You've been combative and . . ."

"It's this blasted place. The memories . . . these caves. And to know I brought you here, where you've been blindfolded and beaten and scared."

Lana's face creased with the effort of trying to process everything.

Taren's tone took on its usual lighter edge. "Not to mention Drayer is such an abominable flirt. It's unbearable seeing him around you." Lana couldn't help but laugh, the sound dying quickly in the suffocating cavern.

"The truth is, Lana, I wanted to be in his place. I can't stop thinking about that kiss. Finding you has been one of the best things that has happened to me, and I keep waiting and worrying for this feeling to fade or this dream or whatever it is to end, but it hasn't," Taren kept speaking faster and faster, unable to stop the floodgate. "I can't help but wonder, if I hadn't saved your life, if I weren't helping you find Gailen, would you still choose to be with me now? And what happens when you do find your family? We're from two different worlds. How would we ever see one another again? How could I ever ask you to leave your family once you've found them again?"

Giddiness, fear, oppressive uncertainty all broke over Lana at once like a tidal wave. Her heart and brain couldn't contain one more worry for the future, so she touched her hands to Taren's lips.

"Shhh," she said, smiling unexpectedly. He looked down, his forehead lined with the thoughts racing across his mind, a million questions in his eyes. Lana reached her hand to Taren's face, smoothing those lines, quieting those thoughts, and answering his questions with a kiss.

Lana felt a hand press against the small of her back, pulling her close, so close she could feel Taren's chest against hers and the rise and fall of his breath. Lana relaxed into Taren's body, eliminating any space between them as she fell headlong into the moment.