Brianna sighed. “They’ve led everything, pushing Morgan and Brendan and all of us so that we could destroy ourselves, do their work for them.” Her eyes met Logan’s. “But they didn’t expect us to get this far. And Callan concealed the future from them. He told them I was hiding a secret, something that was too dangerous to risk.”
Emily stared at her, voice even. “Please tell us it’s true.”
Brianna smiled, slipping her hand into Logan’s. “There are no more secrets. Because I can see everything.”
But the smile wasn’t without doubt, and they could all see that. Logan shifted, drawing Brianna back against him as he urged her to stand. “They’re here.”
“It’s not them we have to worry about,” she said, indicating the space outside where the shadow guards were lurking. “It’s the others.”
She resisted the urge to fall into that vision, to feel the sting on her skin, the scent of them, the feral compulsion to fight them or to run. She had to stay right here for now, to get the new senses under her control. It was their one chance. The only thing that had changed her visions in the past, that had altered the prophecy and their future, was Emily’s bond to Aern. Something in that action had shifted their fate.
And this time, it had to be Logan. He would be that change. He would be her anchor.
The plan wasn’t exactly how she might have imagined their bond, but it was the only option that might work. She wished she could know what their mother had intended, what she and the shadows who helped her had wanted when they laid this arrangement into place so long ago. But they had taken her, and Brianna would never know. In the end, she’d have to choose for herself. She glanced through the room, at Eric and Ellin, and the soldiers of the Seven, at Aern and Emily, at the way their postures mirrored one another, waiting.
She would choose for her. And she would choose for them.
She would choose Logan.
***
It was fifteen minutes before the earth began to shake. Fifteen minutes of waiting, of scanning futures, of checking and rechecking the paths. Fifteen minutes of peace before fire tore through the forest outside the warehouse, the block of trees where they had left Callan bleeding. The ancients had found him, and they were not pleased.
“It’s time,” Brianna ordered as she opened her eyes to the now, to the trembling space that held them, the concrete and metal that would soon be ash. The soldiers held their positions, though they wouldn’t be there long. A blast tore through the warehouse, ripping stone and block from the walls, throwing half of them back and into concrete and steel that contained them. Logan held fast to his power, keeping himself and Brianna steady and secured in place. Brianna used her own energy to shield them from debris, not daring to look for Emily or Aern, to lose her focus to the what if.
An instant later the roar of the blast died and the air was sucked from the room, swift and dreamlike, broken only by the groan of metal as the structure around them strained under the burden of the explosion. Brianna’s arms prickled, the hiss of coiling air seeming to call her name. Taunt her.
Promise her.
“Down!” she yelled, and Logan threw them both forward into the shelter of a pillar as heat and flame surged past. It was too quick, too strong. Nothing about it seemed real, even though it absolutely wasn’t her dream. It was only too tangible, the searing pain unquestionable as molten fire filled the space, stealing their breath and swallowing their sight. She pressed her face against the smooth floor, its warmth like cool water in comparison, and Logan laid his chest and shoulder over her, covering what he could. She tried to count in her head, to will herself to stay down for the seconds this would last.
But every part of her screamed run. It was fire. They were burning.
“No,” she whispered, not caring that Logan might hear. “No.” She might have said more, might have told herself that this wasn’t what she’d seen, this wasn’t how she would die. But she couldn’t; she couldn’t speak because she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get air. They were suffocating. Her lungs protested, but she forced herself to stay still. She could not run. She could not die.
The sudden roar from the raging fire was gone, disappeared as quickly as it had come on, and Brianna’s ears rang in the silence. No one spoke, only allowing for the ragged intake of breath. She wouldn’t look to them yet. She wouldn’t see if they lived.
She couldn’t do anything, because she could feel the ancient shadows now, the certainty inside her that said danger like no other warning she’d ever felt. This was it. It was them.
She twisted her fingers into Logan’s, squeezing hard. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered. “No matter what, stay by my side.”
Logan tightened his grip, pulling her to stand, and said, “Till my last breath.”