Image (Insight #3)(65)

I looked up at Landen. He raised his eyebrows and smiled slightly. “She reminds me of you sometimes,” he thought.

He wasn’t the first person to come to that conclusion. Throughout our childhood, Olivia and I had been mistaken for one another. Not only did we have the same disconnected feeling for the world around us, we were both petite with olive skin, long dark hair, and unique green eyes. My idea of having a twin somewhere in the world was fading; I feared that Olivia just may be her - and that she, without a doubt, belonged to Chrispin. A grief that I’d never find the one who belonged to Drake began to seep into my soul. Landen’s smile fell, then he reached his arms around me and pulled me to him; I felt hope come through him.

We slowly began to lead the others to Esterious. Olivia came to my side and followed silently. I felt the disdain inside of Dane, but I couldn’t understand it.

I took in Landen’s emotion and made myself focus on a beautiful outcome. He tightened his arm around me. “You may be the one that has to talk to Drake - alone,” he thought.

I felt my stomach begin to turn. I wasn’t afraid of Drake, but I didn’t trust myself alone with him - not after everything I knew now. Landen sensed it, and through his touch I felt a calm. “You’re the only one he trusts, Willow; he’ll do as you ask if it’s in his power,” he thought.

I looked up at him. “What do you want me to do – play with his emotions so we can have our way?” I thought as resentment began to surface in me.

“No,” Landen said. I looked over my shoulder to find the others staring at us, and my cheeks flushed with the anger I was starting to feel.

“Listen to me,” Landen said, pressing his lips against the side of my head. “He is the path to what we need: the path to the safety of Delen, the path to his soulmate, the path to defeating that demon. You know I believe there’s a reason for everything – so there has to be a reason that we’re both in this life. I don’t want you to toy with him; I want you to be honest with him, tell him what we need.”

“I just don’t like being in the middle,” I thought.

“I don’t want you in the middle either. Beyond this truce, you need to let that anger out. I don’t want you to mull over why he didn’t tell you he was Oba. Ask him, fight it out; there’s a very good chance that his dreams are the only reliable source we have for the next trails. The scroll didn’t do us much good this time,” Landen thought.

“The scrolls had everything right except who the knife would go through,” I thought, trying to find a way around talking to Drake alone.

A spark of grief and horror raced through Landen’s emotion, and I immediately felt guilty for bringing that moment to his memory.

“I don’t know if Drake knew that part or not, and I doubt he’d tell me - but I’m sure he’d tell you. He’s a part of this, Willow, and August is right: we can’t afford to be divided when we’re faced with a demon like this,” Landen thought.

As I reached my hand out and let it rest on his chest, images of the darkness pushing through him raced through my memory. I wanted to forget it all, to push it down.

“The only way to move past it – is to face it,” Landen thought, reading my intent.

I nodded. “Can we try to talk to him together first? Then, if that doesn’t work, I’ll talk to him alone,” I thought.

“That’s what I was planning on doing; I just wanted you to be prepared to be alone with him,” Landen thought.

“I am as ready as I’m going to be,” I thought, leaning into him.

We stopped at the passage that led to Patrick’s home; we wanted the people in Delen to see us, to know that we hadn’t abandoned them. As the haze moved past us, we smelled the fresh flowers that they’d laid on the staircase. For once, we were happy to see them leading our path, happy that they still had faith in us.

I led us up the stairs. When I opened the door, I saw Patrick staring out his window at the streets; he felt solemn. He turned as we entered the room, and a smile filled his face - but his mood didn’t shift as I expected it to.

“Did something happen?” Landen asked, reading his emotion.

Patrick’s eyes filled with sorrow. “A mass of people tried to escape over the wall last night; they didn’t make it,” he said in a low tone.

The solemn mood Patrick had spread into all of us; I tried not to think of the lives that were lost while I rested contently in my own world.

“The morale is down in the city,” Patrick said, then smiled slightly. “Seeing all of you should bring back their hope.”

“We plan to see if we can reach a truce tonight,” Landen said.

“Tread carefully...Drake has the same enemies that you do,” Patrick answered.

Landen nodded, then looked down at me; it was as if we were the last ones to realize the thin line Drake walked on.

As we stepped out on the street, people stopped what they were doing and watched us pass. I felt their joy and hope. Landen and I reached our hands out to touch them and returned what we felt as we walked by. I could see the wall and hear the builders in the distance. It had grown another foot since we’d left; I wondered how high they were going to take it.

The palace looked beautiful at sunset. It was almost completely painted white now, and flowers were on every balcony. My willow tree, the one that had grown in the center court after my first trail, swayed in the Autumn breeze. I smiled as I watched the energy of light dance around it. It was my first mark on this world, and that night I was determined to make another.