“I love you,” he told her with his last dying breath.
And she stood, totally startled. Had he been able to see her spiritual form? How could her father who had died in the past be speaking to her in a dream so far in the future? How did he know that she was his daughter or that she was there?
The questions confused her enough to wake her up. She opened her eyes. She stared at the ceiling, her cheeks still wet with tears from watching her father fall in battle.
She re-examined the dream that she had just seen. He looked so much like Xuan that he had to be her dad, or their dad, she guessed. She’d been abandoned so young that she couldn’t possibly remember him.
And as he lay dying on the battlefield, he’d looked at her and told her that he loved her.
Could he have seen that she would travel back in time to that moment? She didn’t know if Yore abilities included the ability to sense spirits.
Then she shook herself. Of course the Yore could sense spirits. After all, hadn’t she communed with them in the ocean herself? Her father would’ve had real training, and of course he was better at everything than she was.
She guessed that it was a blessing of the stars that he’d been able to see his daughter once more before he died. She guessed that he had known that she was his daughter the same way that she had known that he was her father.
She didn’t know why the spirits had shown her that moment. She didn’t know how it had happened, but she was sure that the vision was real. Her heart ached for her father.
Xuan looked just like him, with the same silver hair that she had. He had multi-colored eyes, just like Xuan did, and a thin nose and the same two-toned full lips that she had. Her heart hurt, since she couldn’t remember seeing him.
But he’d told her that he loved her.
She wrapped herself in a robe and went to stand by the window. She was cold, and she didn’t know whether she was chilly because of the castle’s temperature or the chilling vision.
55
Strange Dreams
Xuan
Xuan snapped out of a deep sleep. His chest went up and down as he panted. He didn’t know what his dream meant.
His bed was too soft. Sure, they’d had nice sheets in their den, but the Draka bed itself was just too squishy.
He couldn’t remember clearly what had happened, but he thought that they might be in the keep of their enemies.
Bao Dai, their father, had fallen to the Draka. And here they were, with the empress mated to two Drakans, Thrones no less.
The whispers on the street had said that their father had been destroyed when his empress had died from a mysterious alien sickness. He blamed the Draka for bringing it, of course, but there hadn’t been anything that anybody could do for her.
* * *
The next morning, Xuan was walking in the royal gardens with his sister before he found the courage to ask the question that haunted him ever since he had his dream.
“How do we know that we can trust your mates?”
Phuong turned around and asked, “You were pulled into the dream, too?”
“You had it, too?” Xuan asked.
“So you think...”
“He’s alive?” Xuan couldn’t keep the hope from creeping into his voice.
“No,” Phuong whispered. “I watched him die.”
“He was magical,” Xuan protested. He couldn’t recall exactly what happened in the dream, but he knew that his father had better magic than they did.
Phuong walked a little further. Xuan hurried to catch up with her.