Summer’s Snow by Carly H. Mannon
to send a message.
Trees beyond the open stained-glass windows stood lifeless, burned black by a fire started during a lightning storm. The following morning, we were hit by a blizzard, a late summer’s snow.
Something was coming.
I sat perched in one of the window seats of the library and stared out at the palace gardens as I stitched rows of beading on my sister’s gown. I’d hoped that the monotony of the task would soothe my nerves.
It didn’t work.
The stars’ warning had me fearing for our future, that the peace we’d had in the seventy-seven years since the Blood Treaty would not last. Such shifts in nature always meant great change was coming, whether it was for better or worse was yet to be determined.
Lost in my reverie, I lost focus on my embroidery, the needle piercing my finger. As I held it out from the window, the blood ran down my hand. Two red drops landed on the snow outside of my perch. As the red marred the white, images invaded my vision.
The walls of the room were black as night, the space empty except for seven mirrors of various types and sizes. In the center was the largest, the most intriguing—the most dreadful. The frame was made from obsidian, inlaid with moonstones and shimmering stardust, a large crystal at its peak. As I stood before my reflection, the glass shimmered. The surface of a still lake broken by a dropped pebble.
Broken castles covered in ash and thorns. A drop of poison muddied clear water as it unfurled. A dragon roared as thunder erupted. The earth cracked and broke apart as a piercing scream of agony rang. Then, out of that fractured snow-covered ground, what rose from it…
Gods save us all.
The images shifted.
Two children, little girls about 5 years old. They were familiar, I’d seen them so many times now. Turned away from me, they held hands. One with hair dark as night, the other golden like the sun. They felt like…hope. The flame of a candle in the darkness. In flashes, I watched them grow into adulthood, to their twenty-second birthday—their fates on that day.
I went to them and placed my hands on their shoulders. They began to turn to me, but before I could see their faces, before I could warn them, I was brought back to my present.
The two girls were my daughters, twins like myself and Alesia, whom I would bear within the next year. The girls already grew in my womb—tiny sparks of light—but I would never know them. I would not survive their birth. There was to be another war, one that would cause total destruction of our continent as it stood. Our way of life, their way of life, would be shattered.
My hands shook. I knew that Dominic’s, my mate, and my union would be powerful. The stars had declared it so in the vision I had when I met him. I thought the five years of war for our liberation was the accumulation of that. How wrong I’d been if this was what the stars had intended all along.
But there was still hope.
Tears blurred my vision as I looked back to the snow. From my fallen blood, a sprout emerged through the ice and slowly unfurled. A blood red rose grew in its place.
My daughters would know great heartbreak and tragedy, but they would be as tenacious and strong as a rose sprouting from the frozen ground.
The tears streamed down my face as I mourned the fact that I would never get to see them grow, play, love—at least not closely, not as I should have as their mother. It was no wonder now that I had never held them in my visions. I would only ever observe from afar, separated by death’s veil.
Though I would never know them, I knew that Dominic, my sister, and her mate would raise them to be strong, intelligent, and kind. My daughters would be fearless leaders that showed compassion, that protected our people and each other at any cost.
I gathered my now blood-spotted needlework and stepped down from the ledge.
As much as I wished I could stop time and fate from taking them from me, I wouldn’t be idle. The stars’ prophecy could not be changed, but I would protect my daughters in any way I was able. I needed to give them every chance to survive the darkness to come.
I knew exactly where to start.