Stars of Fortune (The Guardians Trilogy, #1)(3)

She painted the man with lightning in his hands, spending days perfecting every detail, the exact shade and shape of his eyes—deep and dark and hooded—the thin white scar, like a lightning bolt, scoring his left eyebrow.

He stood on a cliff, high above a boiling sea. Wind streamed through his dark hair. She could all but feel it, like hot breath. And he was fearless in the face of the storm as death flew toward him.

Somehow she stood with him, just as fearless.

She couldn’t sleep until she’d finished it, wept when she did. She feared she’d lost her mind, and visions were all she had left. For days she left the painting on the easel while he watched her work or clean or sleep.

Or dream.

She told herself she’d pack it for shipping, send it to her agent for sale. And dipping her brush, she signed it at last.

Sasha Riggs—her name on the verge of the storm-wrecked sea.

But she didn’t pack it for shipping. She packed others instead, the work of the long winter, arranged for transport.

Exhausted, she gave in, curled on the couch in the attic she’d converted to her studio, and let the dreams take her.

The storm raged. Wind whipping, the sea crashing, jagged spears of lightning hurled from the sky like flaming bolts from a bow. The rain swept in from the sea toward the cliff in a thick curtain.

But he stood, watching it. And held out his hand for hers.

“I’m waiting for you.”

“I don’t understand this, any of this.”

“Of course you do, you more than most.” When he brought her hand to his lips, she felt love simply saturate her. “Who hides from themselves, Sasha, as you do?”

“I only want peace. I want the quiet. I don’t want storms, and battles. I don’t want you.”

“Lies.” His lips curved as he brought her hand to them again. “You know you’re lying to me, to yourself. How much longer will you refuse to live as you were meant to? To love as you were born to?”

He cupped her face in his hands, and the ground shook under her.

“I’m afraid.”

“Face it.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“See it. We can’t begin without you. We can’t end it until we begin. Find me, Sasha. Come find me.”

He pulled her in, took her lips with his. As he did, the storm broke over them with mad fury.

This time, she embraced it.

She woke, tired still, pushed herself up, pressed her fingers to her shadowed eyes.

“Find me,” she muttered. “Where? I wouldn’t know where to start looking if I wanted to.” Her fingers trailed down to her lips, and she swore she still felt the pressure of his.

“Enough. It’s all enough now.”

She rose quickly, began to pull the sketches from the walls, the board, letting them fall to the floor. She’d take them out, throw them out. Burn them. Get them out of her house, out of her head.

She’d get out herself, take a trip somewhere, anywhere. It had been years since she’d gone anywhere. Somewhere warm, she told herself as she frantically yanked down her dreams. A beach somewhere.

She could hear her own breath heaving, see her own fingers trembling. Near to breaking, she lowered to the floor amid the sketches, a woman too thin with the weight the dreams had stolen, her long blond hair bundled up into its habitual messy bun. Shadows plagued her eyes of a clear and crystal blue.

She looked down at her hands. There was talent there. She always had been, always would be, grateful for that gift. But she carried other gifts, not so gratefully.

In the dream, he’d asked her to see. Nearly all her life she’d done all she could to block the sight she’d been born with.

Yes, to hide from herself, just as he’d said.

If she opened to it, accepted it, there would be pain and sorrow. And the knowledge of what might be.

She closed her eyes.

She’d clean up—give herself time. She’d pick up all the sketches and file them away. She wouldn’t burn them, of course she wouldn’t burn them. That had been fear talking.

She’d file them, and take a trip. Get away from home for a week or two, let herself think and decide.

On her hands and knees, she began to gather the sketches, organizing them in her way. The woman with the fierce eyes, the man with the sword, sketches of her dream people together.

Seascapes and landscapes, a palace shining on a hill, a circle of stones.

She laid one of the dozens of the man she’d just dreamed of on a pile, reached for another.

And knew.

She’d drawn the sickle-shaped island from various viewpoints, and this one showed its high cliffs, its undulating hills thick with trees. Showed it floating in the sea, washed with sunlight. Buildings jumbled together to form a city in the foreground, and the stretch of land, speared with mountains spread in the distance.

The pencil sketch took on color and life as she studied it. So much green, a thousand shades of it from dusky to emerald. So much blue, deep and rich or frothing with waves surrounding it. She saw boats sailing, figures diving off seawalls to swim and splash.

And she saw the promontory where she’d stood with him as the storm flew in.

“All right then, I’ll go.” Was she giving in, she wondered, or standing up? But she’d go, she’d look.

It would either end the dreams, or bring them to life as the sketch came to life in her hands.