Ignited Page 2

  “I was thinking about the bridge.”

  “Good.”

  As he weaves his fingers with mine, I feel his softness for a moment, right before his essence enters me.

  “If you thought of something else—another real place or perhaps even a ‘place’ you saw in a dream—do you think you could send us there too?”

  “Maybe. I’m not really sure.”

  His hazel eyes brighten, and he grins. “That’s better than a no. So let’s try it.”

  “Try what?”

  “Try sending us into one of your dreams.”

  I take a step back. Some dreams are safe for him to see. Others—the ones that are Elizabeth’s memories—are not. They belong to her, not me, so sharing them doesn’t feel right. And that’s if I can even do this in the first place.

  “What sort of dream do you mean?” I ask, trying to keep calm. “Mortifying ones of school? Nonsense ones with purple monsters and unicorns? Or something inspired by movies and books?”

  “None of the above. I’m interested in a particular recent dream.”

  My heart skips a beat, hoping he won’t ask to see Elizabeth’s dreams, but what else can it be? I told him about them yesterday at school. Of course he would want to know more. “W-what one is that?”

  “The one you had yesterday while you were unconscious. I need to know how you saw my death.”

  Chapter Two

  MJ

  Maddy’s beautiful mouth falls as she gasps. “I–I don’t know if I can.”

  “Try. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “No, it’s not. You don’t know what you’re asking. That dream . . . it’s different. I can’t—I can’t explain it. It’s just—”

  Tears line her eyes. Moisture fills the air around us, ready and waiting to fall as rain the moment that teardrop breaks free. I will not be the reason behind her pain. I pull her into me, wrapping my arms around her.

  “Hey. It’s okay. You don’t have to explain. I know you were unconscious and had no control over anything that happened to you. I just wanted to understand what you saw and how you saw it. We don’t need to try it. It’s fine. Nothing is more important to me than you.”

  For several moments, she’s silent in my arms. But her emotions are so chaotic, my essence can barely keep up. Just as swiftly, though, her emotions settle inside her and calmness fills the air around us. She’s made her decision. We’re done for the day. I’m not disappointed or upset by this. I will never force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. I respect her choice.

  “If we do this,” she begins, “and it does work, what then?”

  I arch a brow, caught off guard by her question. Does this mean she’s considering it? I choose my next words carefully, not wanting to sway her one way or the other. “We could practice—work on strengthening this ability—”

  “No. I mean, what will you do if this works and you relive that day all over again?”

  My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Her words sink in, leaving their mark on my soul. I’ve battled millions of demons and secretly fought against the leader of the Fallen. Not once did anyone worry for me. Of course she would.

  Me, I hadn’t thought it through that far. If she could somehow recreate that day and make it feel just as real as her bridge does . . . I don’t know what I’d do. It’s not something I can predict, having never experienced or even contemplated something like this before. Any other dream or any other day wouldn’t matter as much, but this is different—just as she said. It’s the day I failed everyone.

  I take an unnecessary breath to push back my thoughts before I say, “I’ve spent my afterlife trying to atone for the mistakes I made that day. Perhaps seeing it from an outsider’s perspective, I could put my own personal ‘demons’ to rest.”

  She leans back, and I’m once again lost in the deep green forest of her eyes. “Okay. I’ll try. But I can’t guarantee it will work.”

  Gently, I place my hand on her cheek—my essence strengthens inside her. I search out her doubts, trying to give her the reassurance she needs. Instead I find her heart racing and her muscles tightening. Even though I can’t read her mind, I don’t need to. I’ve been matching her emotions to the thoughts she’s shared, trying to put them together so I can figure her out and not be so clueless. She isn’t doubting herself. She’s afraid.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “If it works, we’ll be together. And besides, we know how this works, right? One touch sends us there. The next one sends us back. You’ll be safe. I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  Her eyes narrow, searching me as she mulls it over for a moment. Then she nods. “Okay.”

  I nod back. “Would it help you concentrate on sending us if I described the scene to you?”

  She shudders. “No. I doubt I’ll ever forget it. I’ll try to bring us to the part where you met the Village Girl—”

  “Lifa. And what do you mean, ‘try’?”

  “This is different than the bridge. The bridge is a real, physical place. This was a dream—a nightmare of a dream—that doesn’t really exist. Not anymore. Plus, getting there is only part of the problem. There was a lot going on in the village. I wouldn’t want us to land in a pile of rubble or in a fire or in front of people. I don’t even know if they can see us.”

  “It was a dream, Maddy. A vision. It may have felt real, but it wasn’t. There’s nothing to fear by going back into it. Dreams can’t hurt you.”

  She huffs and shakes her head in disbelief.

  “Do you think I would willingly put you at risk?”

  For a moment, I think she’s going to argue, then she bites her lip and turns away. I close the small gap between us, wrapping my arms around her. My essence feeds off the excitement building inside her. Within a second, it returns to me. The outside world falls away, and I’m once again lost in the dense forest of her emerald-green eyes. I lean down. Her warm breath kisses my lips—mine are dry, itching to touch hers.

  “You can do this, Maddy. I believe in you.”

  Her eyes widen, and then she shuts them.

  . . .

  Darkness descends on me—my body twists and tightens as if it were being sent through a clothes wringer. Suddenly the feelings vanish. The darkness fades, and I open my eyes. Thick black smoke covers the sky. Screams echo on the wind, which carries the scent I’ve tried to forget. The smell is my people burning.

  I reach for my sword and feel nothing but the coarse fabric of my jeans.

  “MJ!” a voice cries out. I follow the sound to my Maddy crouching behind a broken wooden cart fifteen feet in front of me.

  I’m torn between rushing to her and rushing to help my people. There is nothing I can do for them, though. They all died. This is just a recreation existing in an alternate plane, like the version of the bridge she sends us to, but it’s more lifelike than any dream.

  Maddy waves her hand, motioning for me to come to her. If I don’t, it’s just a matter of time before she comes to me. Besides, her cart offers more protection, even though it looks as if it might fall apart at any moment. I rush to her side, taking care not to touch her.

  “We didn’t stay together,” she says.

  I think back to all the times she’s taken us to the bridge. No matter what our original position was, it would be different when we arrived on the bridge. We could be standing, sitting, or lying down. The distance between us could be anywhere from a few inches to several feet. The only thing that remained consistent was that we were never touching there.

  “Maybe that’s just how it works,” I reply. “Or maybe that will change once you can control it more.”

  A thud sounds on the other side of the cart. Maddy crawls underneath the cart, but it isn’t stable. The front end is smashed, and the left wheel is barely hanging on. It could collapse and crush her.

  I take a breath, reminding myself this is a dream, and dreams can’t hurt her, then I follow her under the cart.

  A woman lays on the ground with her foo
t caught on a human bone—what’s left of one of the villagers. Her dress is tattered and torn, and her face is hidden behind dirty golden locks. But still, I know who it is. Lifa.

  All at once, I’m lost in a forgotten memory.

  . . .

  Nikolas struggled, his back to me, trying to free his sword from his scabbard. Seizing the opportunity, I stepped behind him and raised my sword to his neck, pressing the blade below his chin.

  “Gaze upon your destiny. With this sword I will cleave your lying maggot mouth from your swine head!” I roared. The corners of my mouth twitched upward, ready to celebrate besting him yet again, but I fought the urge.

  For a moment, he was as still as a night with no moon. Silence from him was a victory in and of itself. Before I could mock him more, he thrust his head back into my nose. The snap echoed through the woods. I let out a curse as he broke free.

  He raised his sword—now free from its leather prison—and stared down the blade at me. “If I were destined to meet my maker by the end of a sword, it would not be held by a carrion eater like you.”

  I wiped my arm across my face and winced from the pain. “There is no shame in admitting defeat, Nikolas,” I said. “Bow out now, while you still can.”

  He smiled, defiance shining through his blue eyes as he circled me. “And swear fealty to you, Magnus? Wild beasts will feast on my entrails long before that happens.”

  The sound of horse hooves came from behind him. Moments later, an old gray mare with a ratted mane exited the woods pulling a cart. The cart had two passengers—a farmer and his daughter. Nikolas’s eyes widened, then he sheathed his sword and set about fixing his tunic and hair.

  I smirked and straightened, then got to work inspecting the damage done to my face. For the moment our fight was no more. Seeing the love of his life—as he called her—always took the fight out of him.

  She glanced at Nikolas, then tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear and smiled. He stood there like a buffoon as they passed.

  I sighed, then moved to stand beside him. “Have you spoken to her yet?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “She is perfection. I cannot lay claim to her hand in marriage no more than I can ask for the throne.”

  “She is a farmer’s daughter, not a princess.”

  “But that is the life she deserves. The most I could ever be is a warrior like our fathers.”

  “So be a warrior. Save the kingdom with me. Her father would not refuse a hero.”

  “Help me make that happen, Magnus, and I will swear fealty to you. I will be in your debt, in this life and the next. She is worth it.”

  . . .

  The memory fades, and I’m once again lying beside Maddy in the dirt under a cart on the day I died. Her breath stills as we hear a voice—my voice—speaking to Lifa.

  “I don’t get it,” Maddy says. “I can’t understand them now.”

  “You could in the dream?”

  “Yes. Everyone was speaking English. Now they’re not.”

  My brows furrow, further plagued by the mysterious woman I love. “What you’re hearing is my native language. I’ve spoken a little bit of it to you.”

  “Why was it English last time?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I glance over at her, and she’s watching on, wide-eyed, absorbing it all. She doesn’t understand the significance or the events that led to this tragic day.

  I lean in and whisper, “My best friend, Nikolas, was in love with Lifa. When we heard news of Sigurdsson and his men raiding her village, Nikolas raced here to find her. I told my warriors to save the citizens and kill our enemies while I searched for Nikolas. Instead I found her.”

  Strangers’ voices stem from around the corner, and I watch on as my dream-self pulls Lifa to her feet and runs up the dirt path to the field. But I know there is no salvation up the hill. In a few minutes, it will all be over. I’ll die, and she’ll be sentenced to a short, miserable life. The leader of the Fallen will win again.

  I don’t want to see it again. This is harder than I expected. But I need to see where I went wrong. I need to see if there was anything I could have done differently that day to save her. I move to follow them, but then the strangers’ voices around the corner change into raucous laughter as a man hollers out in pain—calling them carrion eaters. I know that voice.

  Shortly after I died and arrived in Immortal City, I was reunited with Nikolas. He wouldn’t tell me about his death, and I didn’t press him. We had been at war. He died in battle. It was all I needed to know back then, though I always carried the weight of failing him.

  If Lifa and I had stayed a few seconds longer, we would have heard him. We would have found him, and I would have reunited them. I wish I could somehow control Maddy’s dream and choose what I want it to show me. Then I could discover at last what had happened to Nikolas. But I know I can see only what Maddy saw. And because Maddy and I are still here in the village and not following my dream-self and Lifa up the hill, I assume that means the dream will end in a moment.

  But then Nikolas cries out, and the sound echoes inside me, shattering my control.

  I rush out from underneath the cart toward Nikolas. In the back of my mind, I know I shouldn’t be seeing this—Maddy didn’t see this in her dream—but I can’t focus on that. I maybe have seconds before this ends. I have to get to him. I have to know what happened.

  Around the corner three men surround something on the ground. They move in a circle, kicking and spitting on their prey. Between their legs, I catch glimpses of Nikolas’s bloody, beaten face. He is dying right in front of me. I have to save him. Even if it isn’t real.

  Searching for anything to use as a weapon, I find a splintered piece of wood. It’s over three feet long and heavy, though it fits in my grasp. It may not kill them, but it will knock at least one of them out.

  My hands tighten around my impromptu weapon as I march upon my enemies. Nikolas cries out again as they kick him. I should have been here to help him.

  I’m here now.

  I stop behind the largest one and pull back, aiming for his head. I swing forward, but the moment before I connect, someone touches my arm.

  . . .

  Nikolas, his killers, and the ravaged village disappear. Suddenly I’m on my back, staring up at Maddy on Hiniker Bridge.

  Chapter Three

  Maddy

  “What were you thinking, MJ?” I demand as thunder crashes, echoing through the pond.

  “How could you do that?” he shouts, jumping to his feet and pacing before me. “He was right there! I could have saved him!”

  “Saved him?”

  I stop and stare at him. His hands twist into his hair as he crouches down on the bridge, muttering something I can’t hear. A tear rolls down his cheek. I knew it would be hard for him to see that dream, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad. And I didn’t expect him to try to interfere. When he rushed at those men, I panicked. I knew the chunk of wood would pass through that man’s head as if it were a hand through vapor, but I didn’t want MJ to see that. I didn’t want him to feel helpless.

  “MJ, that wasn’t real, remember? I know it felt like it was, but it wasn’t.” I reach for him, but he pulls away.

  “Yes, it was! I don’t know how, but it was.”

  “MJ, be reasonable. You’re letting emotions blind you to the truth. What I did—where I sent us—was just like all the times I sent us to that other bridge.”

  “And what was that? What do you think you do?”

  I pause, caught off guard by both his question and the venom in his voice. I know he’s upset by what he saw—he’s not really mad at me. But it still hurts. I only did what he asked, and I didn’t expect it to work. So how did it work? How did I take us there? What is my ability?

  “The other bridge,” I begin, digging for the right words to help him understand, “is like this safe space where I know nothing bad will ever happen. And now that I know a bit about how it works,
I know it’ll always be there whenever I need it, no matter what. And even though I don’t fully understand it, I’m not sure I want to. Because what if I find out my ability isn’t this ‘great gift’ you think it is? That would make that place, that ability—and me—bad. I’m not bad, MJ. So I know that dream place where I sent us . . . it was fine.”

  He shakes his head. “It wasn’t.”

  “What was it then, huh? Where did we go?”

  “Back.”

  “Back? What do you mean?”

  He mutters something. I can’t quite catch it, but it sounds like “home.”

  Back home.

  “MJ, you can’t honestly think—”

  “Why were people not speaking English, then?” His head snaps up, and he stares at me with wild eyes. “And it should have ended once we didn’t go up the hill. We should have only seen and heard what you did yesterday in the original dream. But it was different. Why was it different, Maddy?”

  He stares at me, watching and waiting for me to answer. But I can’t. I don’t have answers for any of his questions. But now that he’s asked them, I want to know the answers too.

  All I did was concentrate on the memory of what I experienced inside Elizabeth’s fountain so I could recreate it as a “place” and send us there. But what was that? He’s right—how could we have seen and felt things I didn’t know about?

  “MJ, what did I—”

  A twig snaps across the pond, and we both turn toward it. MJ steps in front of me, shielding me—his pain and our fight momentarily forgotten. I move out and stand beside him as I search the trees, trying to see what made the sound. I find nothing.

  But it was loud, louder than any animal typically found here. Someone’s watching us. Is it a human? Angel? Demon?

  “Who’s there?” I whisper.

  MJ doesn’t move as he stares at the empty space. I move closer to MJ, placing my hand on his arm, desperate to feel his essence and be reassured that we’re together. He flinches as his essence rushes in, but instead of lingering to reassure me, it zips back to him.