Her Dangerous Visions (The Boy and the Beast Book 1) (13 page)

A bird’s warble sounded from a dense thicket of trees ahead. It was a strange, unfamiliar bird call. Winter stopped and scanned the forest on her left.

The warble sounded again, but this time Winter caught movement. A hand waving.

She hurried forward, seeing Rabbit’s friendly face protruding from an opening in the dense stand of trees.

“You made it, Winter,” came Rabbit’s quiet voice.

Winter slipped into the shadowed tangle of trees. Rabbit’s brown, freckled face glowed with a line of sunlight that had managed to find a hole through the layers of leaves overhead. She had the most lovely big eyes, and if Winter didn’t know her as she did, it would have been difficult to see the warrior that lay inside. A girl willing to risk everything for the farmers’ cause.

“Where is Grey Bear?” asked Winter.

“He couldn’t make it. We’re taking no more risks than we must, and that means he and I mustn’t be seen together in the woods. He told me to give you this though.”

Rabbit reached out and embraced Winter. It was a rather painful hug, as Rabbit seemed to be mimicking Grey Bear’s strength. Rabbit drew back and gave a soft laugh. “Thank you. For coming here. I can’t imagine what you’ve suffered because of the Baron and his Watch. It’s for you and Aven, and for Violet and Coriander’s family, and all the other families who’ve lost loved ones that I have dedicated myself to working against the Baron.” Rabbits large eyes bore into her own. She could feel Rabbit’s anger and passion, and its intensity stirred at Winter’s emotions, uniting the two of them.

“Once the summons is served tomorrow,” said Rabbit, “then we’ll know how the Baron plans to maneuver. And I swear to you, it may be the last move he ever makes. My mate and I, and many others won’t hesitate in delivering his sentence.”

Rabbit’s words were like food to Winter’s hunger. She, more than most, wanted the Baron’s guilt to catch up with him.

“How can I help?”

“You being here, now, willing to risk your life is how you help us.” Rabbit reached out her hand and placed it on Winter’s arm. “You’re sure you want to answer the summons to go to the Baron’s fortress?”

“I am certain.”

“Then be our eyes and ears as best you can. We may have an opportunity to contact you while you’re at the fortress but, if we are unable, simply having you as an ally could prove important tomorrow, on summons day.”

Winter nodded. “Are you planning to attack the Baron and his soldiers at the marketplace?”

“If we must, yes. But first, we have some terms to negotiate. Anantium, the royal city, has laws against the Baron’s tyrannical contracts, as well as laws against his twisted forms of justice. Even though we are outside Anantium’s jurisdiction, we will hold him to those laws.”

Rabbits words were like a revelation.

“How do you know so much about the outside?”

“We have good ears,” said Rabbit. “It is not uncommon for me or others to scale the fortress walls at night and eavesdrop. And besides that, there are a few older farmers who’ve been granted permission to go to Anantium.”

Winter scowled, disbelieving. “But aren’t they accompanied by soldiers?”

“Yes, two soldiers. And the soldiers always stop to sleep at taverns on the long journey. The last time Foxjoy journeyed to the royal city, he had an entire night to talk and ask questions of the other tavern patrons while his two guards stumbled outside to howl at the moon before falling unconscious from drink. I swear to you, Winter, outside the Baron’s land there is a good life. Tyrants are not allowed, and farmers are not robbed and enslaved by the royals’ contracts.”

Hope stirred in Winter’s chest. She searched her memories for the scraps of stories and rumors gleaned over the years—rumors of the farms that lay within the boundaries of Anantium’s protection. They
were
true! Her mind turned to other things she’d heard. The royal city, it held the most fascinating prospect of all to Winter. The tale of the God’s Eye and the Guardians.

“Is there really a portal?” asked Winter. “And is it guarded by people from another world?”

“Yes,” said Rabbit.

The thought of these distant places and people always awed Winter. A portal where men and women from other worlds had come to live on Loam…they were not stories that had grown with the telling, they were true stories.

“Is it true some farmers surrounding Anantium have no contracts? That they
own
their own land?”

“Yes,” said Rabbit with a smile. “They are called free farms. It is hope like that which gives fuel to our cause. Imagine there being no curfew. No restrictions on travel. And imagine keeping every coin of profit from what your farm produces.”

The idea of such a possibility felt as if conjured from a land of dreams. She understood Grey Bear and Rabbit’s hunger for freedom. Her encounter with Leaf, and the visions he’d given her, were a kind of freedom. Promising her that the Baron’s cruel farmland was not her destiny. She would see other sights. Other worlds.

Her hand unconsciously slid down to the glass jar twined beneath her tunic, where she had placed Whisper for safekeeping. She trusted Leaf. He would lead her. That’s why she was here, now.

She was a chosen vessel of the Makers.

“Your mate said he wasn’t afraid to die for freedom,” said Winter. “Are you?”

“No,” said Rabbit.

Winter smiled and placed a hand on Rabbit’s shoulder. “Neither am I.”

CHAPTER 13

AVEN

He squeezed Winter’s hand as they walked the road in silence. Winter had been quiet since returning from the market. The look on her face when she entered their hovel had been strange. He couldn’t place that look with any other he’d seen on her before.

“
How are you feeling
?” he tapped.

“
Alright. Nervous. But I’m alright
.”

“
Sure
?”

“
Sure.
”

Ahead was a grey mass rising under a half moon; the fortress. The crimson glow of the fallen sun splashed a bloody tint upon the upper ramparts.

It was now clear that Grey Bear was right. The Baron’s farmland was boiling with rebellion. Coming out from every farm they passed on the road to the fortress was a farmer swearing oaths of action if the Baron moved against him or his sister. Grey Bear had spread the word quickly about the different summons he and his sister had received. He and Winter were called to the Baron’s fortress while the rest of the farmers were to report to the marketplace.

Were they so confident in themselves that they could overthrow the garrison, or that the Baron wasn’t aware? Had they not learned anything from his parents’ deaths? Spies were listening.

The uncertainty of the future made him sick. The last time he took this path, he had four lives bearing on him. Now he wondered if he didn’t carry the entire community in someway.

No
, he told himself.
Their blood is on their own heads
.

He wouldn’t make himself responsible for anymore lives than he had to. Winter’s was enough.

Grey Bear could destroy his life if he wanted—his and all the farmers’. They were fools if they thought such a dangerous leap for freedom was worth their lives. While Aven and his sister had kept mostly to farmwork the last six months, secluding themselves in their duties, Grey Bear had seeded an uprising. He was so blinded by his ideals, did he not fear the horrific backlash he might bring upon the farmers if they should fail?

Just around a bend were the tall outer gates. A small bird flew low across their path, lit by the last violet traces of sunglow.

Suddenly Winter tore from the path.

Confused, Aven spun toward where Winter had darted. She swooped down and grabbed a stick.

Aven faltered but a moment then ran after her. He noticed she was following the bird. It landed ahead of her, by a fallen tree, but at her approach, it took to the air again. As Winter neared the spot, she raised the stick to her head then drove it down into a bulbous form on the ground. When he reached the scene, he realized she’d skewered a toad. The orange of her eyes glowed fiercely in the dying sunlight.

“I had a vision,” Winter’s voice trembled, and her hand slipped unconsciously down to the twine necklace that carried Whisper in a glass jar beneath her cloak.

Aven nudged the dying creature with his shoe, its legs jerked, then quivered. “Did killing this toad stop the bad from happening?”

“Yes. It was going to eat that bird.”

He nodded.

“But there’s another vision. A worse one.”

Aven squeezed her hand. Whatever it was, he could tell it was devouring her. “You’re not thinking about telling me, are you?”

“Do you remember what I told you about the Maker? What he said to me when he pulled me from the river?”

Aven looked up at the reddening glow over the distant hills. “That was years ago. I’ve forgotten.”

“He told me my gift would save more than it would kill.”

Aven eyed the impaled creature at his feet. Then his thoughts turned to mother and father. “Five dead and who has been saved?” said Aven with quiet wrath. “I’d say that makes the gift giver a liar.”

Winter shook her head. “My life isn’t over yet.”

A gnashing growl of dark emotions stirred inside Aven. “But Harvest’s life is over…I loved her. And Mother and Father—were they too insignificant for this Maker to save?”

Winter was quiet. Aven found her face marked by a serene confidence. Did she not feel? Had the deep wounds he still felt inside already heal in her?

“What if you’re wrong?” said Winter.

“Wrong? About what?”

“Have you ever wondered if you and I might have died along with everyone else?”

“Are you saying that my going out and causing five deaths saved you and me?”

“I think that might be exactly what happened. We might all have been captured trying to escape and sentenced to death.”

Something about Winter’s picture felt wrong.

“That doesn’t make it right,” he said.

“It’s a different way of seeing.”

“But it’s still not right. The Makers have the power to form planets and stars, so why couldn’t they have given you a gift that was able to save everyone? You see? That’s why it’s not right. Either way you look at it is ugly. The gift they gave you is flawed. A curse to entertain the spirit world.

“It is just as the old farmers told us in the stories from our childhood, the Makers are no different than the Baron, or the Royals. They are drunk on their own power, and they’ve left us to fend for ourselves.”

Winter didn’t speak after that. Aven tugged on her arm and she followed him down the path. She needed to hear that, thought Aven. She needed to understand why her devotion to the Makers seemed ridiculous to him. Why he would never trust them as she did.

In truth, her god-gift scared him. The control she gave to it. She should have recanted its power the day their loved ones died, the day her visions turned on them both, but instead, she leaned on her gift like a crutch.

She hadn’t needed him, nor Mother or Father. She had her gods.

_____

WINTER

How was it that her spirit could be crushed so easily? She’d done it. Killed the toad and saved the bird. That was a victory. The gift had worked. But Aven’s words stole her confidence. She wanted the Maker’s calling, wanted to save lives—the death of her parents had strangely fueled that flame into a consuming fire. Had she needed to experience that pain? Did the agony of loss equip her to wield the gift more truly?

She could never be certain, and that would always be an open wound she would feel with every step. Her own questions quietly stalked the path she walked, manifesting themselves in different forms than the fears of her brother.

She was no longer ignorant of the decay in everything. From the gorgeous colors of worn river rocks to falling autumn leaves caught in death’s gentle release, to the wrinkles at the corners of her mother’s eyes that still lived on in her memory. All things grew old and wore down, and new life took their place. Aven didn’t know the depths to which she questioned the Makers. He seemed to think she closed her eyes and simply followed.

He had asked why the Makers had given her such a flawed gift, but that wasn’t her same question. She wanted to know why
everything
was flawed. Even the Maker’s promise held a forewarning that her gift would save imperfectly.

It will save more than it will kill
.

She wondered if the cracks and the fissures and the imperfections in everything might serve a purpose in making better and stronger the beauty and goodness of those same things. She and Aven were only seven when Root was delivered stillborn in their hovel. It was the first time she grasped the uncertainty of life. The death of her baby brother affected her in ways Aven would never know, but did the good outweigh the bad? She never looked at Aven the same again after Root passed. When they buried his small form in the ground, she held Aven’s hand tighter, knowing it wasn’t promised that she would hold it forever. It seemed possible that bad was necessary to deepen good, but as Aven said, it still didn’t seem right. The temple she was constructing to understand both her experience and the seeming flaws in all things was in danger of collapse. Her answers created more questions.