[This post is from Kailey Astoris’s point of view.]
She slowed down as she got closer to Lin’s cottage, her heart beating hard against her breast, throat burning. What if it’s not nothing? What do I do then?
She couldn’t imagine what not nothing would be, but it scared her all the same.
She looked around, biting her lip. Everything seemed normal, like nothing was amiss. Up on the hill, smoke curled lazily from the forge’s chimney, drifting on the wind and disappearing in the trees that clung to the rim and walls of the ravine. There was the faintest scent of rain on that wind, though it was far away—likely wouldn’t come until night started to close in on the world. She couldn’t be sure, though, not the way Astrid would be sure based on the same hints—it just wasn’t her gift.
Her steps slowed even more as she crossed the last few yards to Lin’s front door. It was almost hard to breath, heart fluttering in her chest, now, making war with the butterflies that had exploded in her belly again.
What if it is something? What would it be? What would it mean?
She was more terrified of learning the answers than of not having them at all.
Biting her lip and steeling herself, she opened the door.
