Chapter 259

She couldn't break free. Elain twisted and thrashed, but the hold on her only increased, as did her absolute panic. She needed to get free, that was the only thing that registered in her mind as she fought with everything in her. That was all she had, all that was left, until she heard her name.

"Elain!"

Pausing for a moment, Elain listened. Her heart was thundering loudly in her chest but then… she drew a slow breath, another heartbeat. Opening her eyes, Elain turned. Red hair was the first thing she saw, and she threw herself at it. "Lucien…"

"Yes, Petal." He murmured, arms sliding more carefully around her, and Elain allowed him to pull her in closer. The hold on her no longer felt restrictive and scary, but warm and comforting, and she leaned into it as best she could. "It's okay…" his soft voice was murmured against her hair, and Elain wrapped her own arms around her mate, pressing her cheek into his warm chest. "It's okay…" he repeated, his hand now stroking her hair slowly. "It was just a dream…"

"It…" Elain realised that she was crying then. She couldn't stop the tears, even as her entire body shook with the sobs, and she struggled to breathe. Tightening her grip on Lucien, she tried to force herself to finish, "It was … horrible…"

"I know." He murmured, and Elain snuggled more firmly into his chest. She could feel that he did know, because she could feel a tension within him that wasn't usually there. With a jolt, she looked up at him, her eyes finding his face even in the very early morning light.

"You know?" she asked, watching his expression carefully. "Do you mean that you saw it?"

"I believe I did, Petal." He said, fingers combing through her hair. "I think you may have sent it to me down the bond while we slept…"

"I'm sorry…" she sniffed, wishing that that wasn't something that happened without her knowledge or control. "I'm sorry…"

"You have nothing to be sorry for, my love." He said, lips brushing her forehead gently. "Besides, I've sent you many more horrible things in the past…"

"Nothing as bad as that…" she murmured, and she felt him tilt his head in consideration. Thinking about it, she wondered if he agreed with her. He had sent her Jesminda's execution, visions of him being tortured by Amarantha beneath the mountain, she had even seen what had happened in the cave with Ianthe. "I… I think this was worse." And it was, for her, Elain figured. She had seen her sisters and her mate murdered in this dream.

"It was a dream, love…"

"I know." Elain held on to Lucien, but then noticed that his hand had stopped rubbing circles on her back and was sitting still against her spine.

"… It was just a dream, wasn't it?" he asked, and she pulled back enough to look up at his face once again.

"Do you think it was more than that?" she asked, and his eyes met hers in the early morning light.

"Do you?" he asked, metallic eye clicking and whirring as he thought.

"I…" Elain considered it. As of yet, she had no way for certain to know if the things she saw were true visions let alone if they were present or future events. She was usually fairly good at discerning if something was the past, but this was different. It was even harder to work out what she had been shown when it came to her in a dream. "I can't know for sure…"

"It's your ability, Petal." Lucien told her gently, "What does your instinct say?"

Elain thought of the dream, the way that she had evidently walked off from town in the morning, and yet in the dream she had had knowledge of the day before, and the training, which suggested that the dream events would take place today. Glancing at the window, and the grey light outside, she bit her lip. "It would be today." She told Lucien and she felt him shudder.

"Anything that would suggest that those events will come to pass?"

"I'm not sure." She admitted. "It kind of began while I was already up the mountain." She looked out the window again. "It looks to be a beautiful day… so… I probably would consider a walk up there this morning…" She pulled back from Lucien to look at his face again. "What should we do?"

"We should tell Cassian." Lucien said. "If nothing comes to pass, then there's no harm in having been prepared for something. But, if we say nothing and it turns out something happens…"

"I agree." Elain nodded her head, fear clawing its way back into her chest. Everyone she cared for had died in that dream. If it had been a vision of what today would hold… "We should leave." She said, her hands coming up to Lucien's face as she held him so that he could do nothing but look back into her eyes. "We should go back to the Night Court, and then go on to Day."

"You're scared, Petal." He murmured, and Elain nodded as tears welled in her eyes. "You died…" she choked, "I watched you die… And I can't do that…"

"You won't have to." He said, "That is why you're shown things like this. So that you can say something and we can change it… Simply knowing about what might happen will have caused us to make different decisions today. It's going to be an entirely different future, my love. You will see."

Elain rocked a little closer, until she could stretch up and press a soft kiss to Lucien's cheek, right over his scar. "I hope that you are right." She replied, her fingers stroking his skin then. "I really hope that you are right."