Aviva
“No one needs to worry about me,” Sarah says confidently, cradling the swell of her belly as she leads our group through the woods toward the lake. “I’m not going to go into labor right now, I promise.”
Sydney grumbles something under his breath in response, the words drifting on the warm breeze making the leaves dance above our heads. Ryan’s hand is on my lower back–a warm, solid presence. Lexa’s asleep in her sling on his back, and when I look up at the two of them–with Ryan wearing a traditional Endovian sling and his face cast in uncertain shadows–I feel a prickle of regret.
Part of me believes I shouldn’t have told him about what I saw in the forge. The past lives I walked through, the wars, the downfall of our kind… and most importantly, the fact that in another life, we lost our children and were separated for decades, only to find each other again in the very last moments before we both died.
It stings to think about, though it doesn’t affect our lives now. I’m not sure I believe it fully. I’m not sure I want to.
History repeats itself, doesn’t it? Why would I be shown those lives if I wasn’t being warned about times to come?
A shiver runs up my spine as we reach the lake. The stars are out in full, shining down on us from the heavens. I catch a glimpse of a shooting star moving so swiftly I blink, and it’s gone, too fast for me to even make a wish.
Misty and Cole hung back tonight. They went home to their cabin to rest for however long this takes, because if I find the kids, we’re leaving as soon as we know where they are.
Sarah stands on the shore and takes a deep breath, smiling as she says something to her mate, who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, than standing beside his heavily pregnant wife while she begins to summon her strange powers of sight and manipulation.
“Why can’t you just do it?” Ryan says, his voice heavy and stern.
Sarah glares at him and points to her belly, frowning. “Scrying takes an insane amount of energy that I don’t have. I nearly passed out scrying for Misty, and I wasn’t pregnant yet at the time. I can’t, and even if I could, I could only give us the general area… plus, everyone knows Aviva has a special connection to Maeve somehow.”
I go rigid when Sydney, Ryan, and Sarah look at me expectantly like they want me to agree, but I shrug, toying with the pockets of the dress I pulled on before leaving the house. I think of being led into the forge by the Firestone witches in my vision–those incredibly beautiful women with features I’ve only ever seen displayed in two people I know currently. Tall–incredibly so for a woman. Dark, lush hair. Alabaster skin that seems to glow on its own and those eyes like polished sea glass.
Firestone witches weren’t like the witches alive today. No, they were something else. Something else entirely… and back then, they chose me to command their armies, just like Maeve commands the use of my lap for naps.
Sydney crosses his arms over his chest, checking his watch and casting Sarah a look. “Are you sure about this?”
“As long as Aviva’s sure,” Sarah replies, turning expectant eyes to me.
I nod. What choice do I have?
Ryan licks his lips and gently takes me by the elbow, turning me away from his brother. He dips his head, sighing before saying, “You’ve never used your powers before. I’ll be here the entire time. I’ll pull you from the lake if need be.”
“I know,” I whisper, reaching for his hand and squeezing. “But I’m not going in the water. I’m going to try it Sarah’s way and use the water as a conduit–or whatever.”
Ryan exhales deeply, his eyes shining with silent concern, but he doesn’t try to stop me when I turn to Sarah and walk on steady feet to meet her at the lake’s edge.
“You’ll feel it,” she explains. “Just dig deep and pull.”
“It’s that easy?”
She nods, smiling softly as she steps to the side to give me some space. “Think of Maeve and Logan. Call to them. Ask the in-between for their location, and it’ll show you.”
“The in-between?”
“You’ll know when you see it,” she says, a hint of mischief laced through each word. “Go on, then. I’m excited to see what you can do!”
Sydney huffs his disagreement, and Ryan widens his stance like he’s preparing to jump to my aid, but I step closer to the shore until the water laps around my toes, slinking past the leather straps of my sandals. There’s a cold bite to the water this time of year that doesn’t go unnoticed, but I push past my discomfort and take a huge breath, then I close my eyes and try to–well, I don’t really know what I’m trying to do, trying to reach, I guess. I think of Maeve.
I extend my hands over the water, breathing deeply, trying to clear my mind of the chaotic tangle of thoughts fighting for dominance. I imagine the moment I met the strange baby for the first time. I imagine holding her in my arms. I imagine her perched on my hip while the warm, salty water off the beach in Maatua swirls around us, and she laughs, reaching for the waves.
Something flickers in my chest.
“That’s it,” Sarah says in encouragement. “You almost have it.”
I’m not sure how she knows, but I’m beyond being able to question her about it. My mind stills, my memories sliding away, and when I finally open my eyes again I see fields of wheat–and Logan.
It’s the day I walked him to the hills overlooking the village, when he talked to me for the first time, opening up enough I could sense how broken and lonely he was. How he longed for his family even though he knew they were gone. How he knew he was alone, and now a strange lady with wild hair and propensity for killing things was offering him a lifeline and her mate, a big, scary brute of a man wanted him as much as she did–
I gasp as the lake roars to life with voices I can’t decipher.
I almost give up out of fear, but I can’t stop now, not when my mind is racing through the world all around us, through the stars, over rivers and streams and high into the mountains where villages dot the valleys.
“Keep going, Aviva,” Sarah says over the roaring in my ears.
I feel it. Them, the kids. I see a small village tucked far away in the distant mountains. A burbling stream, a barn, several sheep, and a pen full of pigs. A stone house rises before me, its windows glistening with light as a family settles down for dinner. But the house fades from view at the very moment I catch a glimpse of Logan leaving the barn, creeping through the shadows toward the house.
I gasp as my powers cut out. My eyesight returns at the same moment the water of the lake recedes and grows calm again.
Sarah’s at my side looking owl-eyed and excited as she clutches my arm. “You saw them, didn’t you?”
My heart races as adrenaline ghosts through my body. “I think so, yes. I saw Logan, for sure.” I struggle to catch my breath as I turn to Ryan. “He’s in a village somewhere up north, I think. I know the mountains. I could get us there.”
Ryan scans my face before nodding, his eyes slightly glazed. I bite back a wince as he looks down at his hands before curling them into fists and turning toward the trail back to the village.
I’m like him now. I have powers.
Why do I feel like he thinks of me differently now that I do?
* * *
“Is she asleep?” I ask as Ryan closes our bedroom door. I bring my knees to my chest, curling my arms around them as he steps into the darkness and pulls off his shirt.
“Yeah, she went back down pretty easily. She’s had an… interesting few days.”
“I–I don’t want to leave her again.”
“I know you don’t.” He breathes, giving me a soft, understanding smile that doesn’t touch his eyes. “This mess is temporary. Soon it’ll be the harvest festival and by then, our family will have returned to their homes, and everything will go back to normal.” He sits on the side of the bed with a grunt, hanging his head like he’s stretching his neck. His broad, solid back muscles flex with stress, and my heart sinks.
“I’m so sorry, Ryan.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for–”
“You brought your pack to the Deadlands to escape–to put some distance between you and your–your magical family, and now your mate has powers, too.”
He looks at me over his shoulder. “Aviva, that’s not what I’m thinking–”
“But you have to be,” I edge, tucking my knees a little tighter against my chest. “It’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking I've changed, and there’s no going back to the way things were before.”
He scoots back, wrapping an arm around my shoulders, forcing me out of the fetal position. He lays us back against the pillows, our eyes on the ceiling.
“I’m not worried about that. I love you. I love you more every day that passes, and that won’t change. It won’t change when you start getting wrinkles and gray hair. It won’t change when neither of us can walk any longer, and our pack puts us out to pasture so Lexa can rule.”
I snort a laugh.
He continues, his tone a little lighter than before, “I’m not worried about us. If what you saw is true, this is your second chance as much as me finding you was mine. Whatever comes, we’ll face it. We’ll complain and curse the whole way, but we’ll do it. And we’ll get the kids back. Logan will come home, and everything will be fine.”
I draw lazy lines over his chest, watching the moonlight play over the ceiling.
Ryan sighs, curling his fingers around mine. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“What is it?”
“Logan,” he says, rolling his lip between his teeth. “Logan should stay in the pack, I think. He’s comfortable here, and there’re boys his age to play with, to learn with. He can shift already, which is incredibly early, but we can train him, get him used to shifting. I–I think he should stay with us.”
I lift my head to look at him. He has his eyes closed, however. “Shouldn’t he be with a family?”
“Aren’t we a family?”
“Yes, but… shouldn’t he be given new parents? A new mom and dad to love him?”
His silence is the answer I hadn’t known I’d been longing for, that for some reason, Logan dropped into my life, and I had an instant connection with him but couldn’t understand why.
“I feel like he was meant to be here,” Ryan says. “With us. Don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I think we’re supposed to be his parents.”
Another pregnant pause makes the air go still around us.
“What do we know about teenage boys?”
“Enough to know we have hell ahead of us when he starts getting comfortable enough to push boundaries, and Goddess forbid, liking girls.”
I don’t bother to fight the smile starting to spread across my lips. “It should be his decision.”
“We’ll let him make it. And we’ll leave the mystery of Emberfyll and its people to Ella and Ryatt. I have no interest in that as it stands.”
I nod, laying my head against his shoulder. I curl up against him, drinking in his scent, his warmth.
He presses a soft kiss to my temple before we slip into sleep at the same time, sharing dreams of a peaceful, quiet life.
With our kids.