“Demon,” I said and watched as he turned towards me.
I grabbed his hand and we both froze.
The room was gone.
I looked at Ristan, and then we both looked around us.
The Tree was there, and still frozen. Around the giant Tree was moss, layered in ice. The tiny Fairies flittered here and there as they moved around it, working together to try to thaw it. I swallowed and shook my head and then wondered how the hell we’d gotten here.
“What the hell did you do?” he asked, and I watched his eyes as they swirled.
“We’re in a vision? But whose is it, yours or mine?” I asked, and he shook his head.
My heart pounded, and I felt as if something was inside of me, and yet there was nothing. I felt pain and chaos. Loss was everywhere, and it felt as if I was bleeding out from the inside. I felt rage at the violation, and confusion for why someone would harm me. It was a mass of emotions, and confusion. They weren’t my emotions, so what was it? The Tree? Maybe.
“I have only had one vision in the past two months, Synthia,” Ristan said, pulling me out of the mess of feelings. “This one isn’t mine.” He looked at me curiously. “Maybe part of your new powers.”
“They come,” I whispered and felt a sliver of hope. Only it wasn’t my hope I felt, so whose was it?
I watched as hundreds of Fae sifted in, and we were with them. We carried the children and placed them on the ground in front of the Tree. Only they weren’t alive.
“No!” I shouted as my world spun apart. I fell to the ground and shook my head as I placed my hands over my ears to block out the noise level. “No, I won’t let this happen!”
“We can’t stop it if we can’t unfreeze this fucking Tree. You can do it,” Ristan said as he picked me up and held me against him. “Think. Flower, you’re the Goddess of Faery. You can see the path, now think. Time’s running out, and I can’t bring you here again.”
I looked at Ristan, only he wasn’t the Ristan I’d come here with. He was the other one, the one living in the vision. It was as if somehow, or some way, he’d brought me here from the future. I was starting to consider shit like drugs, magic mushrooms. Just what the hell was in the cider? “See it, see them. You can do this. You’re one of the strongest women I know, and you never give in. Save her, save them all,” he said, and I turned to see countless babies, all dead. “Only you know the way to undo this. You’ve always had it inside of you, use it.”
“I don’t know how to unfreeze it,” I whispered brokenly. “They can’t die,” I cried. “Ristan, show me how!”
“I can’t. I’m not the Goddess of Faery. There was a reason you were reborn as the Goddess of the lands; think, Flower. You have the answers. Look for them.”
I was shown so much more, and yet nothing at the same time. Time changed. We changed. Everything changed. The world spun and continued on as I watched it from afar. As if I was a bystander, and I was being shown glimpses of things that could happen. It made absolutely no sense, but I knew if I searched…and continued to, we’d find the way. It started at the Tree, and we were meant to be there. Now.
Chapter Thirty
I gasped for air and felt hands on me. I screamed for Ristan, but it was Ryder who held me. I looked around the room as everyone in it stared at me. I gulped in air, and that’s when I caught sight of her. Danu stood where Ristan had, but unlike when she was normally around, she looked almost transparent.
“Save them,” she whispered and faded to nothing. I shook the remnants of the vision from my mind and turned to the partygoers.
“I think I know how to save the babies,” I whispered.
“What the fuck just happened?” Ristan asked, his fingers grasping my chin as he raised my eyes to meet his. “Your eyes swirled.”
“I touched you, and then I was at the Tree,” I said excitedly. “I was given a vision, yes, but you were there with me. Only it was another you. Like you’d pulled me through time to tell me what we needed to do. I know how to save her,” I whispered breathlessly and then amended it. “I know how to try to save her, and I think it will work.”
“You had a vision?” Ristan asked as he watched me carefully. “Synthia, I can’t do time jumps, and I can’t pull people through time, either. It’s impossible.”
“You gave it to me, and you were there. It was weird, but who the hell cares? We have to gather everyone!”