Kiyo’s eyes narrowed. “You were five years old when you saw a child you were connected to being murdered?”
She nodded slowly, not wanting his pity when she didn’t need it. I’ve been burdened with knowledge my entire life, Kiyo. I was never allowed to be a child. Not with my visions. But I could handle it.
He cursed under his breath.
An ache flared in her chest as she realized what he felt wasn’t pity. He was angry on her behalf.
I’m okay. I was built for these visions. Built to handle the adult emotions that came with them.
“It would have destroyed an ordinary human kid,” he said. “Seeing things like that.”
Maybe. Maybe not. Humans are capable of incredible mental and emotional strength.
He frowned. “What happened next?”
Dimitri. He was fourteen when Eirik found him in Kyiv. Dimitri was using his powers, much as I have over the years, but not being quiet about it at all. He crossed paths with a vampire coven who turned him over to The Garm. Ronan and I tried to get to Kyiv to warn Dimitri, but we were too late and then we had to get the hell out of Dodge before The Garm sensed me there.
Then there was Astra. Niamh’s stomach flipped anxiously. When I was sixteen, I started to get visions of Astra. She lived in Bergen, a coastal city in Norway. These visions weren’t like the others—these were warnings. About Astra herself. Ronan convinced me not to go to her, not until we understood what the visions meant. But I was pretty sure I knew what they meant. Astra was more dangerous than The Garm and the Blackwood Coven combined.
Niamh held Kiyo’s gaze as she whispered into his mind, Her soul is … Kiyo, she doesn’t have one.
“What do you mean?”
The only thing I can compare her to is a psychopath. It’s not that she doesn’t have wants or passions or that she doesn’t feel ambition or loyalty even … but she has no empathy. It doesn’t bother her if she hurts or betrays someone. She doesn’t feel it. It’s like she has no conscience.
“You saw this?”
Niamh nodded. She killed her parents when she was twelve. She’d been hiding her gifts from them, but they discovered her over time. They wanted her to be medically examined but Astra knew she’d end up in a lab somewhere and maybe even eventually exploited by a government. So she killed her parents and … got rid of their bodies … like I did with the abuser at Moscow Airport. Despite the suspicions of her parents’ friends, there was no evidence she’d done anything to harm them, so she was put into the foster care system. She grew close to a girl in her group home, but when the girl became romantically interested in another girl and stopped paying attention to Astra, she used her powers to push the girl down three flights of stairs. The girl ended up in a coma.
There is a long list of antisocial behavior from Astra. I thought perhaps if I went to her and gave her a family, it might help, but Ronan wouldn’t let me. In all honesty, he was right.
When I was seventeen, I got a vision that truly frightened me. The future is never absolute. The smallest decision can affect everything, so the possibilities are infinite. Over the years, I’ve been shown possible futures. Thea, Conall’s mate, endured horrors that none of the rest of us have. I knew if she didn’t trust Conall when he was sent to her, Eirik would eventually find and kill her. Her mating with Conall would change that future, so I tried to push them together. The vision I saw before he left … it showed me multiple possibilities for Thea, Conall, and their pack’s future, and in all of them, I’m pleased to say that Thea and Conall are happy.
With Fionn and Rose, it was much bigger than just one person’s destiny. Fionn wanted to open the gate so he could take his revenge against the Faerie Queen for destroying his life and turning him fae. He would have succeeded in killing Aine and the fae would rush to the human world to take their vengeance. The human world, as we know it, would have ended.
His mating with Rose, however, changed that. His priority became protecting her and thus protecting the gate.
“So you saved the world?”
Niamh smirked. Rose saved the world from Fionn.
“What of Astra?”
If Astra lived, there was a possibility, not an absolute, but a possibility she’d succeed in opening the gate to Faerie. I wasn’t the only fae born with knowledge. She has it too. Astra and I are like two sides of the same coin. Same gifts, visions, abilities … but one of us was born in the light, the other, the dark. She craves power and believes that she can only be truly immortal by returning to Faerie where there is no iron or werewolves … where nothing can end her.