AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Do you have visions often?” he asked.
“Never. But this one punched into my head and I couldn’t have stopped it if I wanted to. But the hell if I know what to do.”
“It must have come for a reason.”
She got stuck on the early image of Luken plummeting to earth. She wished like hell Braulio was here, the man she tried to stay chaste for. He would know how to dissect the vision and he would offer an interpretation that would comfort her.
She reached out to him telepathically, but no response returned. The brief time she’d had with Braulio before and following the battle with Greaves had ended.
Right now, she wanted some kind of reassurance that what she’d just seen wouldn’t befall her world, that there was something she could do to stop these events from crashing on her, on Luken, on the world she held in the palm of her hands.
She wasn’t given to much deep feeling. She believed being a ruler didn’t allow her to be maudlin or nostalgic on any level. She had to keep her head clear and make tough decisions that often meant some of her people would die.
But right now, a measure of grief engulfed that shook her to her soul.
And as Merl helped her to her feet, her spirits sagged within. She rarely felt despondent, believing any kind of despair to be an unacceptable weakness, but right now she hurt. So she excused herself and went into the bathroom, shutting Merl out.
She had to think and make quick sense of what she had just witnessed.
She chose in that moment to see it as a warning, and that what had begun with Duncan’s kidnapping and his rescue by Samuel and Vela, as well as his current trance, had been a foreshadowing of things to come if she didn’t take heed.
And why had Chustaffus asked about Duncan? Why was his death critical to the madman’s plans?
Then Duncan had appeared and told her what she needed to do.
Never, in her five-thousand years of rule, had she been so close to losing Second Earth, especially now that Chustaffus supported the three generals.
But one thing she did understand; Duncan was the key at least for now. Everything pointed to him, including his inexplicable trance. But why had a mere Militia Warrior suddenly become so important?
Jeannie’s voice sounded through the small room. “Madame Endelle, sorry to bother you, but I have an urgent message from Apache Junction Two.”
Dear Creator, what now? “Yes?”
Jeannie’s next words of Duncan and Rachel arriving at the landing platform and about wreckers having attacked them on her Mortal Earth property, forced the air from her lungs. For a long moment, she couldn’t breathe.
Pacing her bathroom, she asked the hard question. “Is Duncan alive?”
“Yes, they both are. Horace is with Duncan now because he’s still in bad shape. Rachel’s pretty shook up.”
“Sonofabitch.”
Jeannie and Carla ran Central Command, a small group of communications experts who kept information moving between Endelle and her warriors as well as among all the Warriors of the Blood. Jeannie rarely took a night off.
“That’s exactly what I said,” Jeannie responded. “But the good news is we’ve got Duncan back. Rachel said he’s come out of his trance.”
“Is his mind okay?”
“Yes, but he’s unconscious.”
“Then how the hell do any of these dumbfucks know he didn’t fall right back into the trance?”
“Because he keeps waking up briefly and calling out for Rachel. Then passes out again.”
Endelle pressed a hand to her chest and more tears burned her eyes. “Creator be praised,” she said quietly.
“Amen to that.”
Endelle stopped her pacing to lean her hips against the sink. She covered her face with both hands, images of the vision still boiling in her head. “Who’s on rotation over there? Is Gideon back yet?”
