That was what mattered, right? Not getting named captain. I had huge and important decisions to make, outrageous powers to learn how to use effectively. Becoming captain of the ski team seemed so frivolous.
So why was this so important?
It just is. There was some part of me that wasn’t ready to let go of my normal teenage life. I’d wanted to be captain since Aunt Jo had taken me skiing for the first time, when I was eight. You don’t forget about the things you’ve always wanted just because your boyfriend is a Rebel angel, a Guardian angel kissed you in the woods—oh, and you’re preparing for a battle between the forces that control destiny and those that fight against it.
I tried to channel that energy into my race. I closed my eyes and tried to feel the course, remembering how Asher had tried to help me control my powers when my emotions ran high. His lips had been so close to mine, our foreheads nearly touching—and yet I had focused all of the energy between us into summoning a storm large enough to wash the fire from the trees. I tried to recapture the moment. But something wasn’t working. Instead of Asher’s face, I saw Devin, kissing me hard, running his fingers down my arms. . . .
“Eat my powder, Skye,” Ellie called, sailing ahead of me.
“Not likely!” I shouted. But it was too late. I’d never be able to catch up to her. I saw clouds rolling in, dark and ominous. Reminding me that if I lost focus for one fraction of a second, I could lose everything.
And when it was a matter of life or death, losing everything wasn’t how you wanted things to end.
At the finish, Ellie whooped, pulling up her goggles and throwing her fists in the air.
“Good job, El!” my teammates called from where they were watching. God, why were they so obvious about picking sides? I swished over the finish and scrunched to a stop on the hard snow, panting.
“Nice job, Skye,” Ellie said, skiing up to me. “Looks like you may have some competition after all.”
“Really?” I asked, looking behind me. “Where?”
She huffed and skied off to rejoin the team.
I threw my head back and tried to get a grip on the rolling clouds, but they kept churning above me, closing in. It started to snow. Great, I thought.
The last race of the season was five days away. And I was determined to win it. Not only that, I was going to control my dark powers once and for all.
After practice, Aunt Jo sat with me while I ate lunch and griped about the team. “I don’t know why they hate me now,” I mumbled through bites of leftover pasta.
“People hate what they think is a threat,” Aunt Jo said in an annoyingly rational voice.
“Do you have a masters in I’m Always Right or something?”
She laughed. “No, Skye, but you left the team—that was something you chose to do. You left them. Then you swoop back in and expect that everything is going to go back to normal. But it takes time for that to happen.” The subtext of her little speech was crystal clear. My life wasn’t just waiting for me with open arms. I had to work at regaining everyone’s trust. She leaned across the table and took my hand, fork and all. “Give them time,” she said. “They won’t hate you forever.” I sank back into my chair and polished off the rest of the pasta.
“Whatever happened to Devin, Skye?” she asked, catching me off-guard. “He was one of the two new guys you were spending time with, wasn’t he?”
“He was,” I said. He still is, I wanted to add. But I kept that to myself. Cassie would yell at me. Dan would take Cassie’s side. And Asher—
Asher would never look at me again.
What had happened in the woods the night before—that could never happen again. Whatever I had once wondered about between me and Devin was in the past. If I tried to revive it now, it would only lead to trouble. And trouble was what I was trying so hard to avoid.
“Which one was he again? Snowball Fight?”
“Yes.” I twirled my fork along my empty plate, not offering any more information.
“Got it,” Aunt Jo said, taking the hint. “Shutting up now.” We sat in silence for a few seconds. “That Asher’s pretty cute, though.” She frowned to herself. “He’s charming, and he knows it. The flowers . . . and the sweater . . .”
“He just wanted to impress you,” I said. “And can you blame him? You glared at him all night and barely gave him a chance!”
“He’s your boyfriend! Of course I’m going to be judgmental. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I want what’s best for you.”
“And you don’t think he is?”
“He’s just so charming, Skye. Don’t let him pull you along with whatever he has planned.”
“Who said I am?” I felt my temper rising, and tried to calm my mind, focus my emotions. Keep control, I told myself. Don’t let go.
“No one, but I see the way you are with him. You’d do anything for him. Just make sure it’s the right thing.” She stood up.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said hotly.
“Then why are you getting so defensive?” Aunt Jo crossed her arms and gave me a pointed look. “Why would you care if there wasn’t a kernel of truth to it?”
I took a few deep breaths and tried to keep my voice as calm as possible as I said, “I’d rather be in love and make the wrong choice once in a while than always be right and be alone.” I pushed my chair back and walked out onto the deck. I felt the slight tug of guilt at what I’d said, but I didn’t dare turn around and admit defeat. How could she possibly give me advice like that about Asher? She didn’t know him at all! She thought she had him pegged, but there was so much more to him than what she saw.
I looked up, and Asher was standing by the railing. His foot was tapping.
“I thought I’d surprise you after practice,” he said, shrugging.
“How much did you hear?” I asked.
“Oh, everything.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I have no idea why she’s being that way.”
“Don’t be. She’s just being protective. I’m the same way.” He looked a little sheepish. “Do you forgive me?” he asked. “For the other night? I don’t like keeping things from you, but honestly there’s not a lot I know.”
I looked down. I felt so, so terrible. Asher would never betray me the way Devin had. Why was I suddenly acting this way all over again?
“I know,” I said. “And I do. Forgive you. I’m sorry, too.”
“Come here.” He sat down and pulled me into his lap in the Adirondack chair, wrapping his arms around me. We stared out at the mountains as the peaks began to turn pink with the sunset. I leaned my cheek against his chest and sighed.
“I think this is my favorite place,” I said. “Here, with you. It may be my favorite place in the whole world.”
“Yeah,” Asher said. “Mine, too. And I’ve been a lot of places.” He squeezed me. “But only as long as we’re together. Otherwise it’s just a sunset.”
“I don’t want to watch any more sunsets without you,” I said quietly. I felt him kiss the top of my head.
“Me either, Skye,” he whispered into my hair.
I tried so hard to keep my focus the rest of the week. It was difficult, and there were a lot of rainstorms because of it.
Asher loved creating fire—it was his signature move. But my favorite element to control was the weather—the storms in particular. I could feel the lightning aching in my fingertips and surging across the sky. For once, my name didn’t feel like such a coincidence. It felt like something massive, so much larger than me or my problems. When I could think a simple thought and cause rain to fall from the sky, I felt so connected to the earth and to the forces of nature surrounding me.
Standing in the middle of the field, soaking wet and beaming, I would look at Asher and see his eyes flashing. With the lightning crashing around me, the sheer force of everything I felt for him would threaten to topple me, and I drew from it. I knew my feelings for Asher made my powers stronger, and he kn
ew it, too. We fed off each other.
“You’re killing it,” he’d whisper into my ear as he helped me draw the strength I needed to inspire a clap of thunder so loud it knocked my teeth together. “You’ll be the strongest Rebel yet.”
“Tell me what we’re preparing for,” I asked over and over again. “Tell me what’s coming.”
“I don’t know,” he kept repeating. “I don’t know what’s coming, yet.”
I knew he was hiding the truth from me. And my annoyance would cause the sky to crack, and Asher would grasp my hands tightly in his, and the power surged between us, so that there was no difference between love and anger, frustration and joy. It was all the same when we were together. It was exactly what he’d said that day back at the cabin. It was a partnership.
I hadn’t yet told him about what, exactly, I’d seen in my visions. I wasn’t sure he’d understand. I hadn’t had one in a few days, and I was thinking about this one day in the field as we worked silently, side by side, at manipulating the size and shape of raindrops. If I concentrated hard enough, could I force myself to have a vision? And if I could, what would that mean? Did any other Guardians have the same kinds of visions? I knew I shouldn’t, but I needed to talk to a Guardian about what I was seeing. I still needed to talk to Devin.
When the house was dark and quiet that night, I opened the door to my room just a crack. No light shone under the door of Aunt Jo’s room, which meant she wasn’t up late reading. Here was my chance. I needed a way to talk to Devin outside of school, where Guardians and Rebels might be watching us. I’d blurred his destiny—the Gifted wouldn’t be able to track where he was. As long as we met outside of school, we were fine.
At least that’s what I told myself.
I waited ten minutes to make sure Aunt Jo really was asleep before tiptoeing through the front door. Summoning my dark powers, I caused a massive clap of thunder to mask the sound of the car starting. Then I drove.
I hadn’t driven to the apartment complex on the edge of town since that one time I’d gone home with Devin, but it wasn’t hard to find. The light was on in his window when I pulled up. I hesitated. What if Raven was there? Or the other Guardians? What if they were all staying with Devin now? My heart pounded audibly as I got out of the car and walked to his door as quietly as possible.
In my hand was a small purple flower I’d picked outside my house. I tied it to the doorknob with a length of string. He would know what it meant.
I drove away as quickly as I’d come. I knew he would find me. I would just have to wait.
Chapter 22
I woke up before the sun rose the next morning and got ready for school in a fit of nervous excitement.
Instead of going right to my car, I veered left and found the entrance to my favorite trail in the woods that ran beyond our house. It was still early. I had time. I began to climb, inhaling the fresh, morning scent of the evergreen trees that lined the path.
Soon I reached the spot, halfway up the mountain, where the trail curved and the trees gave way to a sweeping view of the valley below. In that spot, in the dead of winter, Devin had saved me from slipping on the ice and falling over the side of the cliff. That day felt like a lifetime ago.
I knew he would know to meet me here this morning, and I couldn’t believe I was walking into this on purpose. But something in me propelled me forward. Something I felt like I couldn’t refuse.
The sun was peeking over the gap in the mountains when I reached the clearing, casting the trail in an orange-pink glow. Devin was sitting on the same rock we’d sat on together that winter day, staring out over the vast fields below. He turned when I stepped on a twig, the brittle crack startling both of us.
“I knew you’d come,” I said. “Thank you.”
His face was stoic and reserved. He’d probably been telling himself the same thing I had. Behave this time. Don’t you dare lose control.
“I probably shouldn’t have,” he said.
I stepped closer to the rock, but stayed standing, kicking lightly at the undergrowth that covered the trail. He was looking at me with that calm that I found so unnerving. What is he thinking?
“I—I have some questions.” I paused and took one step closer, but he drew back. “I know. Part of me knows I should stay away from you, for all the reasons you said. But another part of me doesn’t want to. And I don’t know what to do about it.”
“I understand,” he said. “I came here, didn’t I?” It struck me that the more time he spent here, on Earth, in River Springs, with me—the less stiff he sounded.
“I need your help. There’s so much more I have to learn, and you’re the only one who can teach me.”
He sighed heavily. “I know,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about your visions. That’s why I came to meet you. Your light powers are an undeniable part of who you are, and the sooner you can accept that, the sooner you can master them.”
“Even if I’m a Rebel now?” I asked. “I chose. I made a promise. I can’t leave them. And I won’t leave Asher.”
“You can deny it, but those are just words. You can’t convince yourself that what you’re experiencing aren’t Guardian powers.” His voice was impatient. “You can’t ignore them.”
“So what do they mean?”
“Skye,” he said insistently, leaning in close to me. “Did it ever occur to you that your visions might be telling you something important? What if they’re not just dreams? What if what you’re seeing is the future? Things that haven’t happened yet.”
I started. “Like prophecies?” I asked, not quite sure where he was going with this.
“Not prophecies,” he said, standing up and looking at me. “The Sight.”
“The Sight?” I tried to process what he was saying, but the words felt like another language on my tongue. “You’re telling me I can see the fate of other people?”
Devin paused for a moment, lost in thought. “Maybe not of other people,” he said. “Maybe—just your own.”
“You’re saying I can see things that are going to happen in my future?” I balked. “Is that normal?”
“No,” he said, breaking out into a small grin. “Not for a Guardian. But nothing about you is normal.”
“I can’t believe it,” I said in bewilderment. “The beautiful dress. The beach, the sand, the blood. The shoe box. Those are all things that are waiting for me in my future?” I looked at him. He seemed to know what was coming next. “You and me, dancing.”
Devin stood up abruptly. “I wondered that,” he said. “But it can’t happen. It’s more than just dangerous—it’s not right. You and Asher, and me and . . . Raven.”
“I know.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want you to think—”
“Think what?” I spoke too quickly. I could tell from the look of concentration on his face that he was trying to come up with the best and most diplomatic way to phrase whatever he needed to say.
“I guess I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.” Diplomatic, maybe, but it still stung. I tried to keep a blank expression.
“Well, give me the right one.” I sat down next to him on the rock. My arm brushed against his, and we both moved away quickly.
“I thought you were dead,” he said.
“I know.”
“Asher took you away, and Astaroth forced me back to River Springs. He left me here with no word of the outcome, no indication of the status of the mission. He simply told me that my fate was sealed and I had to await the consequences. And so I waited.”
I pictured Devin waiting in his tiny, clean apartment. No word from his people. Nobody to wake up next to. How lonely he must have felt.
“Okay,” I said.
“And Raven came. She told me I couldn’t just waste my life waiting for you to come back. Even if you hadn’t died, you were with the Rebellion now. There was no way you would ever choose to join the Order knowing that they tried to kill you.” He took a breath. “Deep down I knew she w
as right. Even though our destinies were impossible to discern anymore, thanks to you, we always had been fated to be together. And so we were bonded.”
“Well,” I said, “now I get it.” I looked away. He was watching me closely.
“I thought you were dead,” he said again. “I didn’t think you would ever come back.”
“Look.” We were veering onto dangerous territory. “I came here because I wanted to talk to you about my visions. That was it.”
He stood up, rigid. As if one step out of line would cause his whole world to come crashing down around him. “I want to help you. But you can’t trust me with this information. I’m still under the Order’s control. I still have to report to the Gifted. I could turn on you at any second. Skye, I don’t trust them, and I definitely don’t trust myself.”
“But—”
“They made me a murderer, and I’ll have to live with that for eternity. Can you imagine what that feels like? Knowing I could have killed you and then continuing to live for centuries?” He turned to leave, then looked back at me. “If they find out about your visions . . .”
“I’m not going to tell them,” I said. “Are you?”
A long pause stretched out between us.
Without a word, his wings unfurled from his back, huge and white as the clouds above. And he took off through the trees.
I sat down on the rock and stared out at the field below me.
The Sight. It was the very strongest of the powers of the light. Something only the Gifted possessed. So what did that mean?
School that day was a waste.
I didn’t absorb anything, which was bad, because I’d just finished all of my catch-up work and was starting to feel on top of things again. I wanted to throw myself anew into the college process, but my brain was everywhere all at once. To force myself to focus, I swung by the guidance counselor’s office between classes and signed up for an appointment later that week.
At lunch, Cassie, Dan, and Ian laughed about something hilarious that I was too spaced out to hear. They recapped events from the party in the woods that I’d been too wrapped up in my own issues to have seen. I nibbled absently on my turkey sandwich, and nobody seemed to notice. During class, I practiced building up walls and breaking them down. So far, though, I was convinced that what Gideon had said was a lie. Devin wasn’t influencing me. I was sure of it.