Shades of Darkness (7 page)

Without further ado, she hit play on the computer and I hit pause on my inner thought process. Or at least, I tried to. My thoughts were notoriously hard to silence. Tonight, I knew, not even sleep would still them.

Dark dreams.

Shadow

Feather

Root and Bone

The gods created you for this.

And I sit in the gnarled roots of the World Tree while the horned god Cernunnos speaks from his knotted pulpit:

“The gods demand blood. They have always demanded blood. To speak with divinity, you must pay in pain.”

He turns, but he is now Odin, the Allfather, the ravens Hugin and Munin perched on each shoulder. His suit is coal, his cowl crow feathers, his staff a root from the Tree itself.

“When Yggdrasil burns, god and man shall dance.”

And I turn in the classroom of glass students and see a girl. Her dark hair drips down pale skin, hides violet eyes.

“I know you.”

I say. She says.

My reflection wavers. Glass cracks.

Snow burns outside the window. Ravens scream.

“Of course you know me,” she says. “For we are the same.”

She steps forward, reaches out, touches

my face. Only it isn't her hand, it is my hand, and I stare back

at my face through her eyes.

“When the battle comes, you will be mine,” she says. “Together we will fight the Aesir. Together, we will earn the mortals' worship.”

I step back. “I don't want to fight.”

“But you will. You were born for this.” She smiles. Violet eyes glow.

“You were born to be mine.”

Her skin touches mine. Ravens scream as blood burns and the World Tree cries as the battlefield stretches before us, blood dripping, blood on fire, boughs brimming with blood and ravens. And in my hand—our hand—a dagger, and at my feet,

a body. His golden body.

I scream. Ravens fly.

“Why are you hiding from me?”

Her words crack. She cries blood.

“Why are you hiding from me, Kaira?” Brad asks, his hands

on my cheek, lips

on my neck. His words dripping down my throat.

“Why are you hiding from what you've done?”

And I scream as raven feathers fill my lungs,

as Brad bites my collar, presses hips to mine

as Munin buries himself into my chest.

I woke up feeling like I hadn't slept in weeks. Fragments of my dreams filtered between my fingers as I pushed myself up to a sitting position. My alarm buzzed on the shelf above my bed, playing
Carmina Burana
because I liked pretending my mornings were epic, rather than just me dragging myself from a stupor into a caffeine-induced high. Elisa, as usual, was already up and showering in the bathroom. Despite this, the room was quiet and dark in the heavy winter dawn. Definitely not inviting. Why had I forgotten to turn off the alarm before passing out? I silenced the music and tried to curl up tighter into the covers. Sleep drifted back, slowly.

At least until Elisa came back in and threw Toastie at my head.

“No oversleeping,” she said in her most cheery yet demanding voice. “You know how grouchy you get when you miss breakfast.”

I sighed and opened my eyes, sticking out my tongue at her while her back was turned. I must have passed out longer than I thought—her hair was already dry and she was just slipping into a fluffy Icelandic sweater I envied (and had stolen on many occasions, which accounted for the small ink stain on the sleeve).

“Fine,” I muttered. “But I blame this all on you. You never told me
Prehistoric Zombies
was two hours long.”

“You never asked,” she replied. “Besides, you started snoring halfway through. If anyone gets to be sleepy today, it's me.”

“I don't snore,” I lied.

“Breakfast's over in thirty,” she said. She slid into her parka and grabbed her book bag. She was one of those girls who set out everything she'd need for the following day the night before. How she and I managed to live together in harmony was anyone's guess. “Last minute” was often the name of my game. “I'll save you a cinnamon roll.”

I moaned. Saturday mornings were always cinnamon roll mornings. It made going to school on a technical weekend bearable, which is probably why they did it. I also guessed they put drugs in the frosting. To keep us pliable.

She left a moment later, leaving me to drag myself out of bed. Today was definitely not a makeup day—the world could just rejoice in me putting on clothes. I slid into a pair of jeans crusted with ceramics and paint, and a T-shirt in roughly the same condition. Painting Studio later today basically meant “dressing up” was an exercise in futility.

Last night's dream scratched at the corners of my memory, but I couldn't quite place it. When I was dressed and had the day's stuff together, I took a cursory glance out the window, just to see if it had snowed any more during the night. Sure enough, a fine dusting coated everything, turning the pine branches into lace and the ground to cotton.

And there, on the snowy windowsill, was a set of bird prints.

My stomach gave a little twist as I remembered pieces of my dream, of a raven piercing my chest.
Not just any raven—Munin. Why the hell is he back?

The worst part about learning how to read omens wasn't knowing that bad things would happen; that was just a part of life. It was the fact that you never knew what the omen entailed, exactly, or when the event would strike. Or how disastrous it would actually be.

But if Munin was involved, it couldn't be good.

Today was going to be a
great
day.

•  •  •

The morning dragged by in that expectant blur I'd grown far too accustomed to—waiting for Painting Studio was almost like waiting for Christmas, but today was different. Because today, I'd be spending half of that four-hour chunk in critique, which I was pretty certain was a special level of Hell. Depending on the moment, I was both excited and terrified to be back in that room in a semicircle of easels, staring at a still life and trying not to look too hard at Chris.

Ethan joined me at lunch. I spied Oliver in line, waiting to get his macaroni and cheese and fake chicken nuggets. Oh yes, Saturdays were always good days, food-wise at least. Lunchtime was also an excellent people-watching opportunity.

Even though there weren't any real cliques in the bitchy sense, the kids of Islington definitely filtered into their own groups. It made sense; I mean, you spend a good chunk of your day talking ceramics with a group of people and you'll naturally be drawn to spending your social time with them as well. It was ridiculously easy to pick out who focused in what: the dancers were all shapes and sizes, but they had a definite poise when they walked that singled them out from the rest of us clunky movers; the drama kids were—just like at public high—the loudest and most outgoing and prone to fits of overbearing laughter; the musicians were reserved and generally had that air of
I spend a lot of time staring at sheet music and that's what I'm thinking about now
; the writers just looked depressed most of the time; and the visual artists? Well, we were the ones who looked like we didn't shower very often and had gotten all of our clothes from a more bohemian Cirque du Soleil. Myself included.

“Ready for the gauntlet?” Ethan asked, bringing my attention back to the present.

“Never,” I muttered.

“It won't be that bad,” Ethan said. “I mean, the scene couldn't be that open to interpretation. Right?”

“Um, really? Have you already forgotten the last one?”

Ethan buried his head in his hands, running his fingers through his hair in defeat. “I'm trying,” he mumbled. “I never knew doing a painting of flowers could release so much emotional trauma.”

“Yeah, well, symbolism and shit.”

“I'll never look at a lily the same way again. If I hadn't known I was gay before, I would have after that piece of . . . art.”

“I'll just be happy if Tamora didn't do this one naked. Her poor roommate. I don't think I can stand to critique another piece of work done via ladybits.”

Ethan shivered.

“Can we please talk about something else?” he implored. “Something not about genitalia?”

“I catch you guys at the strangest moments,” Oliver said, sitting beside Ethan. Ethan reached over and stole a chicken nugget from Oliver's tray before the boy's butt even hit the seat. “What's this about genitalia?”

“Art talk,” I muttered. “You wouldn't get it. Rather, you wouldn't
want
to get it.”

“I think you may be right about that one.” Oliver managed to intercept another grab from Ethan. “You have your own!”

“But stolen food always tastes better,” Ethan said with a grin.

Oliver shook his head. “I don't understand why I love him.”

“Neither do I,” I responded. Then stole one of Oliver's chicken nuggets.

“I'm cute?” Ethan ventured. “And crafty. Definitely crafty.”

“Speaking of cute,” Oliver said, and gestured with his chin to my left. And there, lo and behold, was Chris, bee-lining toward us with a tray heaped with food.

“You've got to be kidding me,” I muttered. Ethan raised an eyebrow, but before I could answer or tell him to keep his stupid mouth shut, Chris was standing beside us. Beside
me
. It took a great deal of self-control not to scoot over, even though the other half of the round table was free.

“Hey guys,” he said. There was a tentativeness to his voice that was cute. I mean, cute if I could actually care about that. “Mind if I sit with you?”

And I won't lie, I almost told him we were just about to leave, but that was stupid seeing as Oliver's tray was still full and mine was only half picked over. Ugh, what was I becoming? He was just a guy and I wasn't interested in dating and there wasn't any more to it.

“Not at all,” I said, sliding out the chair. Playing nonchalant was my best way out of this becoming awkward. In theory.