Vindicate (27 page)

Olivia and Charlie stepp ed in the room at that moment.
I focused on Charlie; she seemed relaxed . It was the first time I’d felt that emotion from her since I found her.
Maybe I was wrong about her being nervous about Draven being around energy that was light. Then again she could just be over this entire situation. Just like me.

“Are you alright?” I asked, locking eyes with her.

“Yeah,” she muttered. She glanced from Draven to me and nodded once. I guess she was deciding to trust that he would be safe with us.

“OK,” Aden said to get my attention. “Draven has been watching them . T
hey moved apart. I don’t know if they are doing that by choice or if that is something that Bianca is doing, but they are too far apart in The R
ealm now for us to have time to save them both.”

“What do you mean?!” I said, preparing to argue that there was time.

Aden held up his hand to calm me. “We are going to divide. Draven, Brady, and Olivia are going with you. I’m going with Charlie and Madison.”

“I don’t understand.
How are they far apart?” I asked , looking at Draven.

“
Their co re. T
he soul, if you will , is in the same place , but the essence, parts of their mind are across The Realm .

“You’re going to have to be clearer.”
I wanted to hear a solution not an explanation.

“Basically, it’s a dream within a drea m. They’re subdued in The Realm.
Bianca has taken memories of them and created illusions; she had to have k nown you’re coming after them.”

“Why do I care about that, thou gh? Let her have the memories. L
et’s go to the core.”

Draven sighed. “There is a part of them in those memories, Willow. When we declare an illusion as false it’s going to send that memory back to them. In their dream state, they will start to w ake up. S
o when we find the core of who they are, they will not be so deep. I t won’t take every part of you to wake them.”

I looked at Charlie. “How do any of you plan to declare an illusion of Drake to be false? You don’t know him. I’m the only one that knows them.”

“We don’t know him, but we know Bianca. I know her very well. If I call her out on who she is, see through the illusion, she will not be able to hold that memory. T
rust me.”

“How many illusions of hers have you seen? How sure are you?” I asked, looking for truth in her answer.

A mix of anger and sorrow filled her dark eyes.
“More than I care to have, understand that the images she shows you of them in passion are the ones that are the furthest fro m the truth. When you’re close. Really close . S
he will show you thousands. Everywhere you look, yo u will see her arms around him. H
im begging her to hold him tighter.”

A sick, nauseated feeling crawled up my throat, carrying a rage with it. Thunder rattled the windows to reflect that emotion.
I stabbed my nail into my skin. Seconds later the rumble outside ceased.

“No soul. N
o innocence,” Draven said quietly.

I took in a deep breath and nodded as my eyes met Landen’s body.
I could do this. I knew I could.

“Tell her the hard part,” Brady said.

“What?” I asked, turning to look at him.

Brady looked down at me. “Have you ever heard th at when you die in your dream you die in real life?” he asked.

I nodded.

“That’s true.” Draven said.

My heart started to race as I looked at Olivia. “M
aybe you should go with Charlie. M
aybe all of you need to be far away from me.”

Olivia se t her intent to go with me as she crossed her arms, and I decided just to let it be.
I may not have a finger when this was over, but I was going to let it be .

“We are telling you that not because of the dream Olivia and Madison had, but because we are afraid for your life,” Draven said calmly.

“Apparently, I’m too dangerous t o be bothered with that fear,”
I said with a sustained certainty.

Draven let go of Charlie and slowly walked to my side, holding my stare with his entrancing eyes. When he reached my side, he looked down and tilted his head slightly. “Remember how we talked about pulling energy, how I pulled from Charlie?”

I let my eyes tell him yes.

“In The Realm …that is the pl ace that I am tempted the most. E
verything is heightened. When I thin k that I’ll just take a little, when she thinks she will just give a little –we are already crossing a line. Y
ou are going to want to give everything you have to wake them, and you can’t do that.”

“If that is what they need, I will.”

He moved his head from side to side as he locked his jaw in fru stration. “That will kill you. T
hat will kill them.”

Like the threat of death was not already on the table.
“How am I going to know what they need? What I can give?”

“I can’t tell you that.”
Draven said gently.
“
You need to put aside your desire for instant gratification. There will be a delay, and in that delay you will want to give more, but you can’t, not until y ou know for sure they need it. T
hat you have to give more.”

A soaring pain rippled through the emotions of the room.
“We are all coming home,” I said as I looked at Charlie. Her calm was gone, and the anxiety she fed off was back. I had a feeling that the reason she was going to be helping Drake and not Landen was so she would be far away from Drave n, so he would not be tempted.

I was anxious, ready to go. I looked over my shoulder, knowing that Perodine was close. I saw her in the hallway. She and my father were talking to Madison quietly. It wasn’t hard to see that it was a tense discussion. Madison’s eye s were wide as she stared at the floor and took in what they were saying.

“There is more,” Draven said to call my attention back to him.

“What?” I asked, not losing my stare with Madison.
I was waiting for an excuse to go over there and figure out what they were saying to her.

“In this place everyone controls the atmosphere,” Draven said as he reached for my chin to move my eyes back to his.

“Everyone?”
Oh, this is going to be a blast. Not.

He nodded. “And you can manifest anything at any moment.”

“Manifest?” I repeated, furrowing my eyebrows.

“Yes. Manifest. You want to be in a city then you will be.
You need a sword; think of it, and it’s there. As with every power, there are dangers to that.”

When is there not a danger?
“Like?”

“Like you don’t know when you will come back.
I don’t know what kind of foothold Perodine can give y ou, but I can tell you that world has pushed me out without warning. With weapon in hand and God help whoever is in my pa th. Your aim will be the same and if you throw something, it will ma nifest here.
”

I didn’t need a weapon. I had Mother Nature. So I wasn’t worried about that.

“That is why no one but me and Perodine will be in here,” Alamos said a s he turned from Landen’s side.
“You also need to always make sure you are with nature. A t the very least water –your sign rules water . It gives you clarity. Power.
Move the illusion to places like that.”

“I hope that’s easier than it sounds,” I mumbled .

“Do not hesitate in this world, child. I cannot tell you how long we will be able to open this window to you,” Alamos said as he snapped his fingers and the candles on the alter ignited.

“It is,” Draven promised. “Just think of it . Anything. Y
ou want to fly . You fly.
You want fire. Think of fire. Y
our thoughts literally create every single thing in The Realm .”

At that moment, Perodine and Madison walked in the room; my father stayed in the hallway. He smiled slightly and nodded at me.

I locked eyes with Madison. “Are you alright?”

“Better than ever,” she said with little enthusiasm.

Alamos pulled back the drapes on each side of the bed. As he revealed Drak e’s side, I stared at Madison looking for some kind of reaction, but she remained calm.

Perodine was holding a small silver bowl and the dagger that I had ended my life with.

“Come,” she said quietly as she stood in front of the makeshift altar that had been set up for her.

All of us surrounde d her. She began with Charlie. Perodine pricked her finger and let a drop o f her blood fall into the bowl. S
he moved on to Draven, Aden, Brady, and Olivia , then me. When she reached Madison, she locked eyes with her. I could feel Perodine’s motherly concern, but I could not understand it. Perodine was silently re fusing to take Madison’s blood.
Madison took the knife from her and sliced the tip of her finger and let several drops of her blood drop into the basin.

Perodine looked down, then turned to the altar. Alamos looked at me. “Focus your eyes . See energy. See the aura of them . A ll of you.”

I did as he said. I remembered thinking when I first learned to see energy that I would neve r see the world the same again, but the truth of the matter is that you can turn it o ff. You can choose to not see. Not feel energy if you wish.
I guess that’s why s o many people are unaware of it. T
hey don’t know there is some kind of switc h you can flip on in your mind. A switch that will show you beauty in everything.

I could see the stunning white glow around Landen, t he one that connected me to him. A glow around Drake that seemed to be hig hlighted in ash. T
he different colors around the others . O
nes that told me they were all on different levels of awareness. T
he violent around Madi son and Olivia made me nervous.
I knew they had both, in some way, dreamed of the path before us.

“Now pull it to you,” Alamos said. “Imagine it is a sphere right here, one that I can hold.”

I did as he said, and almost instantly I saw all of o ur energy moving to one place. I t was hard for me to tell if it was my imagination or not.
I focused anyway.

Perodine tur ned from the altar and nodded. O
n cue Brady, Olivia and Draven came to my side. Aden and Charlie went to Madison’s.

“See,” Perodine said Draven.

I looked up at him and watched his eyes turn from green to black as he stared at Landen’s body. Then green when he moved to Drake’s – turning black once more.

Alamos stepped back to Perodine’s side, holding the energy I had envisioned. He and Perodine began to mumble words in a dark whisper. I was so focused on the display; I barely caught all the words that were to o complicated for me to repeat. W
hat I did hear, understand was “sun, moon, mother of all.”

“Clear your mind, child,” Alamos said as their chant ended.

I did as he said and prepared to move my soul at any given second.

Perodine tipped the bowl of blood as Alamos let th e energy I had given him fall. T
he blood was captured by the energy and swirled in a ball of li ght that reflected every color. T
hen it fell to the floor. As it reached the powder that I was sure was salt around the bed, the energy from all of us reached out.
Landen and Drake’s reached for us. Fire erupted from that circle. Before I could panic, it turned blue – as if it were a wall of water before us – and on that water a vision – a world opened up for me.

I could see two places . One looked like an old town, like , medieval old; that one was in front of M
adison. Before me was a field. W
ide-open spaces, the sky was dark. A storm was threatening.

I felt Draven and Brady take my hand s.
Olivia’s small hands on my waist.

I took in a deep breath then I moved my soul into this unknown, unpredictable realm.

I’ve felt pain before. P
ain on every level, but I had never felt pain like this. The pull of energy that took me into this vision felt as if it had ripped my so ul in two. Gasping for breath I fell to my knees on the damp, long blades of orange grass.
Thunder exploded above, vibrating my soul, and lighting struck the ground around me. I had to get control of my emotions or we were going to die before we ever began this war.

I felt strong arms around me, pulling me up.
I felt Draven.
H
is skin had a hum, a calming vibration to it. I breathed that in to my core.
Demanded my caged emotions to stop rattling their prison. Draven pulled my limp body to him, then reached for my chin, forcing me to look at him. His eyes were inches from mine. “Focus!” he yelled over the growling thunder. I felt his warm breath. H
eard the hypnotic rhythm of his voice, and took in a deep, lasting breath.
The atmosphere settled with my calming emotions.