above the byway, high enough into the sky to have room to do what Aron suggested, and even less to keep his endeavors private.
Nic imagined his visions outside of his own mind, until he could see dozens of smoky, wavering figures drifting before him. They had no real substance, these moving pictures of what might be, and each represented a possible future based on the next set of actions taken by Aron and Nic.
So many.
Too many.
The essence of Nic’s head ached so badly he feared it would crack open. The relaxed confidence he had been feeling since he asked Lord Ross to lead them into battle left him like a passerine taking flight. Sparks spit through his senses, the first awakenings of a fit.
Stop it. No. I won’t. I can’t.
He pulled back from the images, dousing the sparks, helped by a rush of Aron’s cool blue energy.
Nic pulled on that flow of soothing light more than he should, like he imagined Lady Pravda did when she drained Kate of all that made Kate who and what she was. Murder. Soul-murder.
Nic ripped himself free of his connection with Aron.
The pain in his body grew so great that it followed him through the Veil.
He was running out of strength.
He was running out of time.
Nic swore and fell to the essence of his knees. With his ghostly hands, less gnarled on this side of the Veil, he pawed through the waves of images his mind created. He pushed at them. Pulled at them. Dispersed and reshaped them.
Which one, which one…?
Nic heard his mind’s voice, and it sounded disturbingly thin and unbalanced, like the cries of his mother in her more troubled days.
Was this legacy what broke her mind?
He understood her insanity now, in ways he never imagined he would.
His vision flickered and dimmed, and for a moment he sensed his mother, sampled the morass of her cluttered thoughts and unhinged feelings. He recognized her instantly—and she seemed to recognize him. Her energy grabbed for his, and he didn’t have the strength to push her away.
How close was she to him?
A mile?
Two?
Not far, and riding on horseback.
He hadn’t thought his mother capable of going into battle, least of all mounted and armed like one of her Guardsmen.
Was this some new insanity, or some trick of the rectors seeing to her care?
Whatever it was, Nic was sinking into her mind, losing himself in her joyous greeting—as if that could ever happen, as if it could ever be real.
A burst of Aron’s graal woke Nic’s nerves and pulled him back to safety, then increased his focus on his true goal. Nic shook as the sense of his mother lessened, until he could control it, until he could force it far from his mind and heart, despite the tears rising to his eyes.
He watched Aron’s blue energy weave through his own red graal, and stared at the images of the future through their combined strength. The flavor and style of Aron’s graal became part of his understanding, and the mixing of truth and possibility gave Nic new purpose.
He attacked the images with a fervor, grabbing for the right one, the correct one, the one they needed and must have.
Come to me, he urged, much as he had urged Dari to return to herself when she had briefly been lost to him when she lost her connection to her twin again.
When the images wouldn’t cooperate, Nic snatched at more of Aron’s graal.
Aron gave freely of his energy, and Nic flung the force of Aron’s power and his own at the rushing array.
Come to me! He shouted the words aloud, on both sides of the Veil.
The sound crushed against his ears, his awareness, until his teeth seemed to rattle in his skull. His vision darkened again, and this time, no energy came to rescue him. Nic pitched forward, tasting blood and smelling nothing, seeing nothing, into darkness, into a great, cold, black void—
With only a few streams of images.
With just two or three possibilities, instead of thousands.
Nic’s body screamed for release as he grabbed at the pictures and studied them. Pain clawed at him, dragged at him, but he ignored it. He refused it. If all his limbs fell off and he bled to death as he searched, so be it. Perhaps he could get the proper images to Aron, who could carry on in his stead.
As Nic stared at the moving pictures, sorted through them, rearranged them, he let the frozen truth of the future creep over him,