Revelations (12 page)

Chapter Thirteen

~Abilities~

Nora found Gray peeking out from behind a tree. When he saw her looking at him, he moved forward cautiously. “It’s alright,” she told him, kneeling down. “Nobody’s going to hurt you, anymore.”

As if he understood the words entirely, Gray galloped over to Nora. She smiled with relief as she saw him run.

Nora reached out to pet his back. When she touched his fur, a stream of emotions entered her mind. Emotions, but not her own.

Danger.

It was a faded emotion, and felt more like…the memory of an emotion.

Relief.

That was fresher and more powerful. It lasted only a second, though.

Concern.

That was the one that pulsed the strongest. It was a concern for something that felt uncannily familiar.

Nora stumbled back, breaking away from Gray. As soon as she broke contact, the stream stopped. And her mind was once again her own.

She looked at Gray in disbelief. He stared right back at her. “Was that you?” she whispered. “Did you do that?”

Gray tilted his head to one side and studied her. Nora shook her head. No, of course not. That’s ridiculous. But still…

“Come here,” she told him. He walked closer. “Do you want to show me something?”

Gray craned his neck as he got close. Nora reached out again, tentatively this time – and again, the emotions came. She gasped as she realized they were more than that. They were connected to images, fuzzy and skewed and difficult to make out, but they were there.

She saw herself from behind, running through the forest. The perspective was low, close to the ground. And the images were centered right on her. It was like nothing else really existed.

Peace. Serenity.

The emotions were tied to the images. She was seeing herself, through…Gray’s
thoughts. No. His
memories
.

She watched as the distance between her and Gray slowly increased. She saw her shape getting smaller and smaller up ahead, until it was lost completely in the trees.

Determination.

She watched through Gray’s perspective as he tried to pick up speed, tried to run faster to catch up.

Determination
.

He was running faster, moving as quickly as his legs would take him, but it was not enough. Still, he was not giving up.

Determination,
louder than anything, stood out above all.

Suddenly, there was pain at the side of his head. Something hit him. His vision blurred, and large red dots flickered over the images. She felt Gray stop, turn around.

Danger
.

He was wary, looking each way to see what had happened. She felt him growl, felt his hackles rise in anticipation.

Something much stronger hit him from the side, and he blacked out. Nora cried out. As he lost consciousness, it felt like barbs the size of fists had been planted in her skin and were being ripped out all at once. The connection wavered and was lost.

She stumbled back again, pulling her hand away from Gray. The blackout, the darkness…it was too much. The connection that should have been gently eased out of had been mercilessly terminated.

She looked at Gray. He stood there for a moment, regarding her calmly, then walked closer to her. When he was nearby, he put his head down for her to place her hand on it.

“There’s more?” she asked. Gray didn’t move. Nora reached forward again, a little more sure of herself this time…

She was being carried over somebody’s back.

Danger
.

They moved smoothly, like silk flowing majestically though the wind. She tried looking around. She knew there were four…
beings
there, but getting a grasp on them with her eyesight, actually
seeing
them, was…slippery. Like trying to handle an eel in water.

Her sense of direction was strong. Intuitively, she knew which way she was being carried, where they were going. It was the same direction she had been running before, when she had been following…herself. But they were going much faster than she could have on the ground. They were going to catch up, and…

Another blow came to the head, and again she blacked out.

Nora fought the sensation that sought to overcome her. Fought against that feeling of having her skin burst open. Fought to keep the connection with Gray.

Nora fought…and won.

She felt herself coming to. She was sprawled out on the ground. Her mind wavered for a second, coming to grips with where she was and what was going on. Then it all snapped together.

Danger
.

She got up and ran, to where she could hide.

Danger.

She found a spot behind a bush and jumped in. Then, cautiously, she peeked out and looked around, trying to get a better feel for her surroundings. There were no signs of anyone.

Her eyes came to rest on a small clearing. Right in the middle of it, there was something…something she couldn’t see. But it felt familiar in some way. Try as she did, her eyes just couldn’t focus on it.

She moved forward cautiously. All her senses were alert, aware of what might happen should she be caught off guard again. And that…
thing
…in the middle of the clearing didn’t move. She took another step forward with her front foot. Her eyes glazed over it, but it was still in some way familiar to her. Although…something was off. She sniffed the air, trying to get a better sense of what that was. It was as if a part of the shape in the clearing had been taken away. Like something was missing.

Suddenly, she heard somebody else approach. They were moving fast, zipping through the trees.

Danger?

Quickly, she ran behind the trunk of a large tree.

Caution.

As the movement came closer and soon stopped, she heard noises. She couldn’t make them out, couldn’t understand them, but they were familiar. She looked out from the side of the tree…and saw
herself
, kneeling beside…that mysterious shape.

Hope
.

She stepped out from the tree, started to move toward herself, but something held her back. The person she saw was paying much more attention to the thing in the middle of the field. She stopped, standing still. The person wasn’t paying her any attention.

Confusion
.

She took a step forward, pawed at the ground. Still nothing.

Disappointment.

The person glanced up, saw her.

Joy!

She started to run forward, but the person just turned their attention back to what they were looking at before. To that slippery shape in the middle of the field. She stopped again.

Betrayal?

She stood still for a second, waiting…and nothing happened. Slowly, she turned back.

Abandonment
.

She hung her head and walked back behind the tree. She lay down, her mind empty except for…
disappointment.

She heard movement. Cautiously, tempering her excitement, she peeked out from behind the tree. She saw familiar footsteps.
Nora
was walking toward her!
Happiness
and
relief
washed over her. She raced forward, and Nora’s hands reached out to pet her back, and…

The emotions stopped, and the memories ceased. Nora came back to her own mind. She looked at Gray in shock. Was he doing this, or was
she
the one doing it…?

Then everything clicked together. Her transformation. The ability that she would be gifted with that hadn’t shown itself yet. Feeding, earlier today, for the first time. Gray’s instant affinity toward her. What Alexander said about the Vassiz and animals, and the way Gray saw them represented in his own mind.

This
was her ability. Or at least, the start of its emergence.

She reached out again to touch his head. She felt the connection between them being made, felt the link between her and him waver and then snap into being. This time, though, she wanted to see if there was more that she could do.

Thoughts and images didn’t come, because she didn’t call them. Instead, she spoke in her mind.
Can you understand me?

An image came to her mind, tinged with unspoken emotion. It was an answer. And there was only one meaning she could give it.

Yes.

Chapter Fourteen

~Into Town~

Nora stepped cautiously out from the edge of the trees. It was dark, when her vision was most sharp, but she still wanted to be absolutely certain there was nobody there before making her move.

They had stayed hidden at the outer edge of the woods when they had come up to Nakusp a few hours ago. Alexander had insisted they avoid notice as much as possible. Nora agreed. An injured man, a teenage girl, and a bear cub would cause quite a commotion almost anywhere.

Nakusp was a small town, and an old wooden sign by the main entrance road tallied its population at 1,800. From what Nora saw, it might well have been half that many. Old, dilapidated buildings stood near the town’s center. To Nora’s sharp eyes, many of them looked to be abandoned. At night, lights shone from less than a quarter of all the windows, only increasing the feeling of a ghost-town.

A large river flowed along the western bank of the town, and its rushing waters could be heard now over the relative silence of the night.

It didn’t take long for Nora to identify an old, abandoned farm that stood by itself a few hundred meters away from the core of Nakusp. Its windows were broken in, and its doors had long fallen inward, and by the look of the overgrown grass and vegetation out front, nobody had tended to it in years.

Which meant it was the perfect place for them.

The trouble, unfortunately, had to do with Alexander. While they journeyed, Nora noticed he started leaning more and more heavily against her side. And while he denied that he was feeling worse, he appeared much weaker than before. She couldn’t say the color had been taken out of his cheeks – because his skin had been so milky pale in the first place – but when she looked at him, she noticed an effect much like that.

It was like his liveliness was slowly being drained out of him. And by the time night fell, his face had grown tired and gaunt, and his skin was hot to the touch.

At least he could still stand.

Behind her, Alexander mumbled something indistinctive. He spoke loudly, but his words now slurred so badly Nora couldn’t make them out.

“What?” Nora looked back with concern. His eyes were closed, and he was sweating. The wound in his shoulder had stained through his shirt, and Nora wondered whether putting his shirt back on had been the right move. She was afraid the fabric would somehow get infused with the wound and prevent its healing.

What little healing was going on, anyway.

He didn’t respond. He clutched the top of his bad arm with one hand, and clenched his jaw against the pain. Nora went to him quickly and put a hand on his forearm.

“It’s alright,” she told him. “We’re here. I found a place we can stay. We’ll spend the night, and tomorrow I’ll find the healing woman. She’ll get you the herbs you need, I know it.”

Alexander mumbled something in response, but it was even harder to make out than before. And his forearm was blistering hot. He needed water, needed to be relieved of the fever. Vassiz were not supposed to be so hot.

Alexander tried speaking again, but all his words mashed together in an incoherent string. Nora frowned worriedly. His speech had been slurring all day, but this was the first time she wasn’t able to understand it when he made an effort to talk. Maybe they had less time than she thought. She prayed that was not the case.

“Gray,” she whispered, looking to the bear. His eyes shone in the night, and he looked at her intently. “Gray, come here.”

He walked closer to her, and she reached out to place a hand on his back. Instantly, she felt the connection between them being formed, felt their minds becoming linked as one. As soon as it snapped into place, she formed an image of the barn in her mind as best she could, and she let him see that image.

In response, she felt
understanding
. But there was also
uncertainty.

Nora thought for a moment, then realized he needed the direction. She laid out its coordinates in relation to them as best she could, and the feeling of
understanding
radiated back strongly. Then
questioning
, as if he was asking, “What do you want me to do with it?”

Nora formed an image of what the inside of the barn might look like, but made it…unsteady. As if to ask if that was what it was really like. After a moment, she felt
affirmation
shoot back from the link as Gray understood what she asked him to do. He turned and raced away.