A/N: Well, here we are. Four months later. My goodness! You all (if there's anyone left) can thank LoveAroundEmbers for this chapter. No joke. She gave me a good verbal whipping to get me started. It was probably exactly what I needed and I hope nobody holds back seeing the results! (Don't threaten me or anything but a push never hurts...bad.)

All I can say is read carefully and ...

Enjoy!

Chapter 16: Moving on to the Future

"How long are we going to be here?" Vincent groaned, to which Lana immediately answered with a smack to the back of his head.

"Could you be any more callous?" She hissed. She wasn't actually angry but nothing less than an intense emotion would get through to him. She was bored, too. It'd been two days since Zain's ... Lana hadn't figured out what to call it in her head. It wasn't an accident exactly.

"I could," Vincent drawled rubbing the back of his head in a token motion. Nevermind, maybe nothing ever really got through to him.

"Lana, I think you're overreacting," Damien spoke with his deep calm voice.

"About what?" She demanded sharply.

"How many times has Zain told us we should move on? He's fine with it. In fact, I believe he said that it wasn't a very smart idea to wait until he could see again," Damien continued in the same calm voice only he could seem to produce.

The three of them were sitting in Damien and Vincent's room. Lana was sitting on one of the beds with Vincent. Damien was sitting on the other, shining his weapons. There was plenty to work on considering he easily carried the most weapons in their triad. Lana sighed, flipping back painfully straight black locks away from her face. She looked away from her brother's face, up and towards the designs on the wall. "I can't help it that I'm worried about him."

Vincent swung an arm around Lana's shoulders. "He's a grown man and doesn't need a silly princess worrying over him. We agreed to help him since he's helping us but he doesn't need you coddling him."

"I'm not coddling," She feebly denied. She sounded weak and unconvincing even to herself which only made her sigh again. "But..."

She cut herself off with a grumble. It was a sad day when Vincent was forced to make so much sense. She stared defiantly at Damien's working hands, thinking it through. Just watching him work with blades made her hands ache for the milk white blade. She shoved that urge aside. Now wasn't the time.

"We can leave tomorrow," Lana ventured hesitantly. She didn't want to leave, not with Zain in his particular condition. And yet a part of her, a surprisingly sizable part, was overjoyed that those words had left her lips. Leaving! Oh, the adventures! And yet even though that had been her point to start off on this entire journey she felt so horribly torn and a little guilty.

She wanted, very deeply, for Zain to be better. She hadn't tried conveying that to her brothers. It wasn't just the fact that he was blind now, it was... that great pool of sadness she could see in him. Lana's chest ached for him in empathy. Not that she'd ever experienced anything half so heartrendingly painful and knowing that she had not right to help him in any way only made her feel useless. Silly princess, indeed.

Still. Wanting to travel and see, first hand, everything the world had to offer was something she'd dreamed about ever since her mother had told her the first of many stories.

But...Zain...

Her brothers, seeing various emotions pass over Lana's face as only brothers can, looked to each other. After a silent exchange Damien spoke up, "Lana, what's on your mind?"

"Zain," She murmured to quiet to hear. She put on a smile and louder said, "I'm going to check up on Zain."

And with that she strode out of the room. Vincent's eyes were on the door for long moment's after Lana had walked out of it. Slowly, very slowly his dark brown brows scrunched together. He turned to Damien mouth parted, ready to speak until he noticed the same confusion on his brother's face. It was then he knew that no words were needed because they were both thinking the same thing. What was that? When had Lana simply not answered a question, or ignored it or ignored them for that matter? While anyone else might not have thought much of this the two brothers couldn't fight off the kernel of fear that buried itself in their chests.

"Something..." Damien said slowly.

"Is not right." Vincent finished with a nod.

It had been the future this time.

Zain closed his eyes, taking deep breaths. This was something his mother had not dared to do. Zain flipped through pictures, frames of events in his mind. It was hard to treat it like a distant book with vivid pictures. He could hear the sounds of the city. People talking, horses clopping by, doors opening and closing, a child's laughter, and the always present roar of a never distant ocean. He could see faces, too. An older woman with a tan and weathered face haggling with a small shopkeeper over the price of beets. A child, six or seven, cried as his friends continued to play, ignorant of the fact that their friend had tripped and fallen behind. Two young lovers were hidden away, fearing their discovery and loving the dangerous secrecy.

Those were the sounds of the here and now. Right? And yet even as he thought it the ocean changed. The winds were different. A new picture filled his mind from another area. A man, young man really for he couldn't have been a hair older than eighteen, worried about his betrothed whom he would meet for the first time in a matter of hours. Information like an arrow shot through the picture. Prince.

His concentration, which was focused on not falling into the visions, cracked. It was a high balcony that looked over buildings buried in trees. The breeze was cool against his cheek. The young man closed his eyes for longer than a standard blink before opening them again. It was here Zain made a mistake.

At the sight of such familiar hazel eyes his attention sharpened. Without thinking, he tried to shift the vision to get a better look at this man. He wanted to be sure that the physical similarities were just a trick of the eye between this Prince and...

But one can never control visions and as he tried to rein this one to his will there was no fight. It simply fell away like water through his fingers.

Then there was a flash of her. Her long black hair pulled tight into a braid. There was a cave. Still in the Yamani Islands. She whipped her head around and flashed a smile. He saw it all in a moment and the next moment there was Lana again at the same time but in a parallel situation. It was only a flash because her gift kept her mostly shielded from him.

He didn't want to but the vision pulled him down the long line of cause and effects, choices and resounding scenes. The paths were not only for Lana but also for the older woman at the shop whose path was coming to an end, the boy who'd fallen but would not fall all his life, the two lovers whose love for each other had not been so strong and so many others. All of what would happen in the same time space to different people in different places.

A light shone in each of those lives to him and he realized how all of these visions were related. She had met—no, could or would meet. A juncture in her life would change how many of these things would come to pass. He had seen it, found it, feared it.

After diving into all of this, one event seared his mind and memory.

A kiss.

It was only a possibility, and before it's time came there were thousands of small choices to be made and hundreds of paths to walk down.

He was back at the room he had begun in. A unique presence he had come to recognize as Lana was knocking and shortly thereafter, entering.

"Zain are you alright?"

"Yes," He said aloud and it was only then that he realized he was still watching the visions. His voice sounded too solid and real falling like a stone through fog because the future is unstable, unpredictable, and anything but set in stone. He had come so close to the present, however, that Lana's voice came to his solid ears taking him away from so many futures which had all resounded from her brightness and... he tore away from that thought, unwilling to think about it just now while she was in the room.

"Zain, are you alright?" The vision which he could see, and the present, which he could not, came closer and closer in time until he was following the present with his vision seeing it with his mind's eye.

"Yes," His voice was only a little different from how it had sounded before, it was more a sigh of relief.

"That's good. Are you feeling well enough to travel?" She sounded hopeful. In his vision/sight he could see her hazel eyes and others which were surprisingly similar flashed before him. Yet he knew that he had lost the chance to see them closer. If he searched for something it eluded him.

"Of course, I told you I was fine days ago," The left side of his mouth turned up into an almost smile.

"I suppose," She said with an eyeroll. "We can get an early start tomorrow. Right now, I'm going for a walk would you like to come?"

Every answer he gave, he gave carefully.

"Yes," He answered finally. Zain felt guilty for being so selfish because when Lana reached out and wrapped her fingers around his to lead him, he almost physically felt a clang as the gates to certain paths closed. Just a step further along the path which he desired, hating himself for it.

Lana did not let go of his hand, not that Zain tried to take it from her hold.

They walked down the street, together talking pleasantly. Lana fired off questions to which Zain answered to the best of his abilities. Most of them circled around his visions. She asked easy questions, well easy meaning that she didn't get too personal which he appreciated. After some time, Lana frowned, just a small frown.

"You talk like my mother," She said slowly because it was just occurring to her.

"Hm? How so?" His soft voice rose in curiosity.

"Well, I once asked my mother why I had been born a--" She stopped. She'd been about to say born a princess. "...at all."

She saw one of his brows rise and answered it with, "I was an inquisitive child."

"I can tell."

She smiled. "Anyways, she'd told me that I was born because the gods willed it and that I had a path to walk. It was my path and no one else's, not even my own brothers could follow it. That had been especially hard for me to believe at that time, my brothers and I have always been inseparable. My mother said that the path was overseen by the Fates and that whatever I did, they would oversee it." Lana shook her head lightly, coming out of her reverie. "You sound like her the way you talk of paths and fate."

Zain's grip on Lana loosened with surprise. Not many people used those exact words. Lana's fingers tightened around his as if to wake him up. "You okay?"

"Who was your mother?" He asked.

Lana blinked. "Oh." She laughed. "You know, just a wonderful woman from Karucia."

Murderer, Uncle whispered so quietly it was only a breeze at the back of her mind. It was so quiet that she threw the suggestion away. It must have been a trick, a mistake, nothing more.

Zain saw something on her face, the reluctance to give him more information and let it go. Instead he asked, "You are from Karucia?"

The conversation ensued from there. Eventually Lana led the way back to the inn. She paused at the door when she caught sight of a small pretty little face peeking from around the corner. The setting sun cast shadows making it more difficult to see but it also set off distinct highlights in the long matted brown hair.

The girl, she realized, the girl who stole Damien's purse. But what was she doing here and hiding suspiciously? Maybe she wanted more money and had followed Lana because, well, that made sense. Lana took a step towards her and in a flash she was gone.

Curious, Lana thought. She put a smile on. Perhaps she would see her later.

And of course, she would.

A/N: I hope everyone was writing their notes! This chapter is HEAVY on the foreshadowing.

Alright! So feel free to send in the reviews (please!). They just might keep me going!

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