Chapter 7 He Believes Her Now

• The scream cut through the training hall two days later, sharp enough to stop every conversation in the room at once.
• I was in the healer's wing when it happened, mixing salves under Professor Hale's watch, and my whole body went cold before anyone even said his name.
• "It's Silas Calloway," a second-year student gasped, bursting through the door. "Something happened during drills. He's hurt bad."
• I dropped the mortar and pestle and ran before Professor Hale could stop me, my heart pounding somewhere up in my throat. The image from my dream flashed behind my eyes again, trees and blood and a face I now knew too well.
• The training yard was chaos by the time I got there, students crowded in a loose circle, voices overlapping in panic. I pushed through the bodies until I saw him.
• Silas lay on the ground near the sparring ring, blood soaking through his shirt at the shoulder, his face pale and tight with pain. Rhett knelt beside him, pressing both hands hard against the wound, shouting something at the healers rushing toward them.
• "He came out of nowhere," someone nearby whispered. "Just grabbed a blade off the rack and went for him. Nobody even saw his face."
• My stomach dropped straight through the ground. Nobody saw his face. Just like the shape in the trees two days ago.
• Professor Hale reached Silas first, taking over from Rhett with practiced hands, calling out instructions I couldn't follow through the ringing in my ears. Rhett stood slowly, his shirt smeared with his brother's blood, and his eyes found mine across the crowd before I could look away.
• Something in his expression had changed completely. The coldness was gone, replaced by something raw and shaken, something that looked a lot like recognition.
• He crossed the distance between us in a few sharp strides, ignoring the students still whispering around us. "You knew," he said, low and rough. "You knew this was going to happen."
• "I tried to warn you," I said, my voice cracking. "I tried to tell you both."
• "I told you to stay out of it." His hands curled into fists at his sides, not at me, just at everything, at the blood still drying on his palms. "How did you know?"
• I didn't answer, because the truth felt impossible to say out loud, standing in the middle of a crowded courtyard with everyone still watching.
• "Wren." His voice dropped, quieter now, almost pleading in a way I hadn't expected from him. "How did you know?"
• "Not here," I whispered.
• He looked at me for a long, tense moment, then glanced back toward the healers carrying Silas away on a stretcher, his jaw tight with something between fear and fury. "Fine," he said. "Not here."
• He grabbed my wrist, gentler than I expected given the anger still radiating off him, and pulled me away from the crowd, past the training hall, down a quiet corridor where the noise of the courtyard faded into distant echoes.
• "Talk," he said, releasing my wrist once we were alone. "Now."
• My hands went to the amulet without thinking, fingers wrapping around the familiar shape through my shirt. "I have visions," I said. "Since I was eight. I see things before they happen, mostly deaths. This amulet is the only thing that stops them."
• Rhett's expression didn't shift the way I expected, no disbelief, no mockery. Just a slow, dawning stillness, like pieces were sliding into place in his mind.
• "The clasp broke," he said, not a question.
• "How did you—"
• "I saw you touching it. That first day, and again after the ceremony." His eyes narrowed slightly. "You've been checking it constantly since you got here."
• "It broke my first night. The visions came back." I swallowed hard. "I saw your brother. Trees, blood, someone following him. That's why I ran after him that morning."
• "And today?"
• "I didn't see today. I thought I'd stopped it already." My voice shook on the last word. "I thought warning him would be enough."
• Rhett was quiet for a long moment, staring at me like he was still deciding whether any of this was real or if grief and adrenaline were making him desperate enough to believe something impossible.
• "Why didn't you tell me everything from the start?" he asked finally.
• "Would you have believed me?"
• He didn't answer that, which was answer enough.
• "Nobody knows," I said. "Not even my uncle, not really. If people found out what I am, I'd never be safe here. I'd be a target, or a freak, or worse."
• Something in his face softened, just slightly, the anger draining into something closer to exhaustion. "Is he going to be okay? My brother?"
• "I don't know," I admitted. "I only see fragments. I don't control what comes or when it stops."
• Rhett dragged a hand down his face, leaning back against the stone wall behind him like his legs had finally given out on the adrenaline holding him up. "This is insane."
• "I know."
• "You're telling me you've been walking around for ten years seeing people's deaths before they happen." His eyes lifted back to mine, sharper now, searching. "And nobody figured it out?"
• "The amulet hides it. Hide me." I wrapped my arms around myself. "Until now."
• He studied me for a long moment, something unreadable passing behind his eyes, and when he finally spoke again, his voice had lost its edge completely.
• "Whoever did this to Silas is still out there," he said quietly. "And if what you're saying is true, you might be the only person who can stop them from trying again."
• The weight of that settled hard in my chest, heavier than I was ready for.
• "I need you to see it again," Rhett said. "Whatever's coming next. I need to know."
• I looked at him, at the fear still flickering behind his composure, and felt the truth settle cold and certain in my stomach.
• Whatever I'd started by warning Silas, it wasn't over. It had only just begun.