the basket on the floor. He then presented the second one. Expecting another bird or animal, I wasn’t as nervous this time, knowing Lorn wouldn’t have placed anything dangerous inside.
I was wrong.
Nothing moved within, and I searched, reaching farther into the basket until I was almost touching the bottom. Then my fingers brushed the feathers, and I seized up.
Escape! Escape! The feeling of being trapped overwhelmed me. I was outside in a pen. I looked up as Lorn, impossibly tall like a tree, loomed over me, his hands going around my neck, and then pain and darkness.
I screamed, pushing the basket away and falling to my rear. I cried, tears rushing down my face, grasping my own neck as I could feel Lorn’s fingers tighten around it.
“Y-You tried to kill me,” I cried out sobbing.
“No, Rosalie. I didn’t!”
“Yes, you did. I saw you!” I pointed at him accusingly as I backed away from my fey tutor.
“You were mistaken. It was not you but the bird,” Lorn said calmly, kneeling to pick up the dead dove that had fallen out of the basket when I knocked it from his hands. “You shared in the bird’s death vision.”
“What?”
“You, Rosalie, can touch the dead and see their final moments. Death calls to you, and you come—sometimes unwillingly.”
“I don’t understand.” What he said did not make me trust him or come any closer to the dead bird. I was still reeling from the feelings of Lorn’s hands around my neck; even now, I could still feel the pressure as he prepared to snap it.
“The night you woke up in the chicken coop, a fox had come in and killed the rooster.”
I was going to be sick. Running out of the room, I made it to our sink and lost the contents of my stomach.
That was the day he taught me about a group called the Death Seekers. They were called upon to give answers in death, specifically the how—finding out if someone was poisoned by a jealous lover or merely died in their sleep. The gifting was extremely rare, and it paid well since only a few were in tune enough to see a person’s death vision.
“I don’t want this gift! Lorn, please take it away!” I begged.
“Nonsense. You have been chosen for a reason, and it is not good to deny your gifts.”
“I can’t do it.”
“It is as I feared,” Mother Eville said from the doorway. “She has the Death Seeker gift.”
“Yes, and as she grows, so will her powers,” Lorn replied.
“We can’t have her chasing after the death of every livestock or butchered animal in the middle of the night, can we?”
“No, but when she sleeps is when she is most vulnerable, and her magic will draw her to them.”
“Then I will find a way to temper her gift,” Mother said confidently.
“Lorelai, there is no way to—”
“Don’t you tell me what I can and can’t do.” Her voice dropped to a growl, and she retreated to her potions closet. Days later, she emerged, hair a mess, eyes red and bloodshot from lack of sleep, holding a potion in the form of a dried tea that did indeed keep the blackouts and dreams away—until now.
“And now here I am years later, using my gift willingly,” I finished. “Those men who were murdered in the woods… they tried to kidnap me.”
“And you saw their murderer?”
“No, I blacked out and woke back in my room, covered in their blood.”
“I’m sorry you had to experience their death like that,” he said sincerely.
Xander didn’t ask any more questions after that.
Leaning against his chest, I felt myself slowly begin to relax. He never made a move to touch me, and I could almost hear his mind processing, taking in the information I had relayed.
“What of your real parents, not Lady Eville?”
“I don’t remember them. Mother never speaks of them other than to say I was bartered away, traded like goods, and she saved me. She said it doesn’t do well to dwell on where you come from but to instead focus on where you’re going.”
He leaned down and rested his chin on my head. “You are an amazing woman to overcome so much.”
“What?” My breath caught in my throat. I was surprised at his sudden praise.
“Don’t get my wrong. You are also extremely stubborn and frequently cause me grief.” I grinned in response. “But that only makes you more irresistible to me.” My heartbeat picked up at his admission. “The kingdom will fall to war, but I don’t