Chapter 11
That night Midori dreamt. She dreamt frighteningly of death.
She was in a chapel. Priests could just be seen blessing and spreading incense over a body. She turned away, unable to meet the poised pale face lit by gold candlelight. Her father now lay on his deathbed, died while trying to save a woman from death in childbirth. She was dressed thickly in clothes of black, a veil of ink-colored lace concealing her green eyes. Tears tingled in her eyes like unshed drops of rain, clouding her vision like the Yamani mask hid her emotion from the group of mourners.
Midori walked calmly from the chapel, passing a mirror on her way. She paused, not look at or fix her hair, just to look. The young woman noticed thin lines of worry at her mouth and the corners of her eyes, she also noticed how scarred her hands had become. As if her hands held every sin she had carried.
Midori then felt the dream change as the mirror melted like a pool of silver, and an image flashed before her eyes.
A letter fell to the floor and sobbing could be heard as the figure turned from the window. Oriana threw the rose she held, to the floor. "He's dead" she whispered. "Emrys is dead, they—they found him in the field, lance pierced right through him…" Oriana broke down sobbing while Midori went to comfort her friend, glancing at the letter and rose at Oriana's feet.
Midori saw the rose and letter liquefy away to another scene.
She ran. Ran to comfort, ran from the screams and the gore. But she didn't get far when her eyes fell upon the still forms of Oriana and Sheba. The two friends had died in battle, Sheba from duty and Oriana from heartache. Blood pooled like spilled wine at her feet as she kneeled, crying, and pulling her two dear friends to her chest, wishing for their geniality. Bidding a last goodbye, she stood and stared aimlessly at the pool of red.
The dreams kept on slipping into nightmares.
Midori kneeled next to her childhood friend as Amyl turned and smiled weakly at her. Merric gripped her hand as healers swarmed around the sick woman. Midori felt hot tears swell in her eyes as Amyl coughed and struggled to breathe. With her face turning a tinge of blue, Midori felt her dream of knighthood falter. The only reason why she had been here to train was because of her friend. She wanted to fight alongside her friend, to never stop being friends. And now, as Amyl's breath slowed to a mere thread, Midori wished she had inherited her father's healing Gift. She wept as Merric's sobs grew louder. Amyl had finally died.
Midori pled for the dreams to cease. But one more slipped past.
She threaded and pushed her way through a crowd. And what she saw made her heart nearly stop in her chest. She felt bile rise in her throat and felt the world spin. There. On the hangman's noose, hanging. Was her lover.
His white, purple face held a look of shock as if he had struggled before giving in. And in a sickly sense, she was proud for him. Proud but grief-stricken. Sick but well.
She read the sign that had been put up: 'Hanged for treason' it read.
A turbulent of emotion threatened to overtake her mask, but she let it. Anger and greif left her on her knees punching the ground and sobbing uncontrollably, with her hands scratched and bloody, she bowed her head and whispered: "If this is his fate, this shall be mine" She pulled a dagger from its sheath, the silver blade catching the soft moonlight.
Without thinking of her fears, she plunged it into her chest. She felt her heart throb lessening as she lay in the dirt dying, the blood spilling over her breasts. "So mote it be" she murmured, closing her eyes to everlasting darkness.
Midori awoke crying; sweating through her nightclothes and her throat was raw as if she had been screaming. She looked around, hearing voices and gasped as she gazed at her father and her friends—very much alive.
Neal stroked her hair, trying to comfort her as she hugged him tight around the neck, sobbing into his shirt. She just wanted for the dreams to stop; they had, but left Midori distraught.
"Shh, sprout it's alright." Neal whispered.
"I dreamt you all died, all of you." She murmured though her tears.
"Well it was only dream." Neal reassured.
"Only a dream" Midori repeated, feeling her worry disappear.
They were alive and, right now, that's all that mattered.