Rogue Legacy by Jeffrey L. Kohanek (snow like ashes .txt) 📕

A scream pulled Lyra from her dream, and her eyes flashed open. She sat up, her heart racing.

Fumbling in the darkness, her fingers danced along the top of her nightstand until she found the cloth and pulled it aside. The glowing rock Cal had given her lit the room, the soft blue nimbus giving shape to her surroundings and chasing the shadows into the corners.

Another scream disturbed the silence and sent chills down her spine. Lyra slipped out of bed and gripped the doorknob. When she eased it open, she held the stone above her head and found the corridor empty, the doors open except the one to Cal’s room.

She crept down the corridor and peeked into the kitchen, finding it exactly as it was when she had gone to bed. Cal’s voice came from behind her in a series of unintelligible shouts. Lyra retreated to his room and put her hand on the doorknob. With trepidation, she pushed the door open.

Cal lay in his bed, alone in the room. He jerked and moaned, shifting his covers. Lyra approached his bedside and found his face damp with sweat, his breathing in gasps and fits. She put her hand on his shoulder and shook him.

His eyes shot open, and he bolted upright, gasping for air. The look on his face sent another chill down Lyra’s spine.

“It’s alright, Cal. It was just a dream.”

He turned toward her, his eyes meeting hers. “No.” He shook his head. “Not a dream. This was something more.”

Cal tossed his covers aside and climbed out of bed wearing only his smallclothes. He grabbed his trousers from a hook on the wall and began to dress. Having never seen him with his shirt off, Lyra found herself distracted by the ripples of his lean torso. She became aware of her own body, feeling self-conscious in her thin shift, and she turned around to return to her own room.

“I had a vision, Tali.” The tone of Cal’s voice stopped her mid-step. “A powerful vision of the future.”

She spun about to face him. “Like a…a prophecy?”

He nodded before slipping his tunic over his head. “Unlike any I’ve experienced before.”

“You’ve had them before?”

“Yes. However, they’re usually only about me, something small and about my own near future – like the one I had about you just before you tried to rob me.”

“You had one about me?”

Cal ignored the question, and he opened the top drawer of his desk. After removing his journal, a bottle of ink, and a pen, he walked toward Lyra, grabbed the glowing rock from her hand, and slipped past her into the hallway.

She followed him to the kitchen, where he sat at the table with the glowing rock resting beside his journal. He flipped through the pages until he found the first blank page, tore the blank sheet out, and began writing.

“What is this about, Cal?” The screams that woke her flashed through her mind. “Is something bad going to happen?”

He stopped and stared at the paper for a moment before nodding. “You’re right. You deserve to know. It affects you, too.”

Lyra slid into a chair opposite from him, her attention fixed on his intense eyes.

“Something is coming, something I wasn’t quite able to discern in my vision. Whatever it was, it will be massive and terrible. They are going to use magic as a weapon, a weapon of the worst type. This magic will target people’s fear, rendering them powerless to fight it. More importantly, I must try and stop them.”

Lyra considered his cryptic words. “What are you going to do?”

Cal took a breath, releasing a long and deliberate exhale. “I must create a weapon to combat theirs.” He focused on the paper before him, the single sentence written on it now dry. “And, if this vision is true, we’ll also need a way to ferret out the lies. The truth cannot remain hidden or things might grow worse.”

“You keep saying they. Who are you referring to?”

Cal rubbed his eyes and sighed, seeming reluctant to respond. “I’m not sure, but I’m afraid that this vision is about The Hand. I’m afraid they are twisting my discoveries into something I never considered.” His voice fell to a whisper. “Something horrible.”