You're only human. You know what you have to do to salvage your friendship. You do want to salvage it, right?"
She nodded. "Yes."
"Then spend a few days with your family rather than Basir or your friends. Give yourself some time to calm down. I'm sure Basir will understand. And if he doesn't, then perhaps that's a sign he won't make as good as husband as you deserve."
"Thank you, Mother," she sniffled.
She kissed her daughter on the forehead. "That's what I'm here for. Come now. Dinner should be almost ready, and I'm sure I heard your father come upstairs and change his clothes."
She blew her nose, cleaned up her face, and went downstairs with her mother. The rest of her family didn't ask her why she disappeared, which was fine with her. By the end of the evening, she was feeling a little better.
She found herself at the base of a mountain that was covered with black grit. Smoke was coming out of the top, and the still air was warm. "What? What is this place?" she wondered. The ground shook violently, and she was knocked onto her rear end. When she stood again, the mountain had cracked, and a red-yellow river of lava was flowing straight toward her. She turned to run.
"You don't have to run," came a strange voice.
She whirled around and saw an odd figure standing to her side. It was glowing bright white, human-shaped, but it only seemed to be two dimensional. Trying to determine a gender was impossible, but the voice sounded vaguely female.
"What are you?" she asked, backing away from it and down the mountain.
"You'll find out soon enough. You don't have to run."
"I don't know about you, but I certainly can't survive a lava flow," she replied, watching the menacing, fiery ribbon wind its way down the mountain toward her.
"You can control it."
"What are you talking about?" she snapped, frightened. She slid down the gritty slope a couple of feet.
"You control it. That's what you have to do. You can't out-run it, any more than you could out-run the landslide or the fire. You know that."
"How did you know about that?" Eliora demanded. The ground shook again, and she fell to her hands and knees.
"I know. Soon you'll know, too." Then it vanished in a flash.
The ground rumbled again, and a new crack opened directly upslope from her. A new burning river cascaded toward her.
"Oh, please, not again," she whimpered, and was engulfed by lava.
"Aaaah, nooo!" she screamed, sitting straight up in bed. "Oh gods. Oh gods." She was damp with sweat and panting hard. Her body hurt and she felt too warm. She quickly opened a window and stood in the cool night air to calm herself.
"Eliora, are you alright?" came Adiva's voice.
"I'm sorry, Mother," she called, closing the window. "I had a bad dream."
"I guess that's to be expected, given how your day was."
"What? No, it wasn't one of those dreams." She lowered her voice. "It was one of those strange vision dreams."
"Another one? This makes two."
"Three."
"Three?"
"Yes, Mother. I had one about a month ago. Actually, exactly a month ago."
"And that was exactly a month since the solstice. Eliora, go to temple tomorrow morning. Promise me."
"And ask what, Mother?"
"Some sort of guidance. This is very odd, and it worries me. The gods don't send visions without good reason."
"I can't imagine what a god would want with me," Eliora replied. "I'm not anyone important."
"Just go to temple tomorrow morning. Do not forget."
"I won't."
"Good," Adiva replied, looking relieved. "Now, back to bed for the both of us. If you oversleep, you won't have time to go to temple."
"Yes, Mother." Eliora crawled back in bed and Adiva left the room.
Another week passed in Renfrew. It was now exactly one month before the autumn equinox. Donnan was working late in the tavern.
"Dammit, Darris," he thought, scraping dried food out of a pot with vigor. "I'm supposed to meet Blake tonight. Stupid boss. Stupid over time. How hard is it to find another godsdamn dishwasher?" With anger fueling his scrubbing, he finished up only an hour later. He dropped off his apron, and raced to his apartment to change clothes. Then he headed to the Black Goblet, still annoyed at being late.
"Dammit. I hope Blake doesn't come looking for me, or we'll miss each other. I hate it when that happens." He ducked, dodged, and sidled his way around the crowd of people. He had missed the afternoon rush of people getting off work, but now he was caught up in the end of the evening rush of people going out. Normally he kept an eye out for pickpockets and other suspicious characters, but he was so focused on reaching his destination he wasn't paying as much attention as usual. When he escaped the commercial district, he slowed his pace until he just started to reach the seedier part of town. Grateful to be free of the crowd, he paused to catch his breath.
"Hey, you," called a sneering and slightly slurred male voice from right behind him.
He whirled around, his hand going to his dagger, but not drawing it. He was facing three young guardsmen, and he recognized the one who spoke as Reese. While he was almost as tall as the guards, they had a lot of bulk he didn't. "Godsdammit, I'm in some deep trouble now," he thought, taking a step back. "May I help you gentlemen?" he asked as politely as he could.
"You're that skinny dishwasher," said Reese in an accusing tone.
He took another step back, and moved his hand away from his dagger. He knew that the last thing he needed was to actually draw a weapon on a guard. "I am a dishwasher, yes."
"And your brother was a dishwasher too. Until he got into the guard."
"Yes. Is there a problem?" he asked, continuing to cautiously back away.
The guards took a few steps closer to him.
"You wait right here," snapped Reese. "I've got some questions for you." He nodded to the two men with him, and they quickly got behind Donnan, moving surprisingly fast for such large men.
He tried to get his back to a wall. His mind raced. "Is there anyone around? Can I call for help? No, not in this part of town. No one wants the guard to pay attention to them. If I was little farther along, he wouldn't dare try this stunt."
"Now, why did you and your brother lie about that fight to Aolani?"
"What? That was two months ago. What's the problem now?" he snapped, a touch of scorn in his voice.
Reese gave him a shove. "Pay attention, you skinny little nobody. The fight was two months ago, but you two lied to Aolani about a month ago. Why did you do that?"
"I don't know what you're talkin' about," he retorted, angry and starting to get very nervous. There was a distinct smell of alcohol on the breath of all the guardsmen.
"Of course you do." He shoved Donnan again, this time right into the grip of his friends. "Aolani is the most beautiful woman I know, and she was seeing me. Then she talks to you nobodies, and suddenly she stops seeing me. Says I wasn't being much of a gentleman."
He bit the inside of his mouth to avoid making a smart remark, nervously aware that angering the guards was only going to result in worse injuries.
"She told me she knew I was getting into fights for no good reason. Of course I tried to set her straight, but she said she had gotten the other side of the story. I figure that meant the men I'd fought with. Then I remembered I saw your brother at the guard try-outs, and I saw you sitting next to her. You probably mentioned something after you saw me wave at her. Why in darkness she'd believe you over me I'll never know."
Donnan glared at him, and tried to yank his arms free of the other two guards, who were snickering.
"I'm better looking, I've got a better family, I've got more money. You. You're just a skinny nobody, and your brother's just a bigger version of you. Stupid jackass."
He was still silent, but the two guards had tightened their grip on his arms.
/> "What? Don't you want to say something in your defense?" he asked haughtily.
He cursed himself for not continuing to work out and practice, but he still said nothing.
"Alright, I was wrong. Your brother is a bigger, dumber version of you. He's so easy to get angry. You just take it. That's smart. Real smart. Or maybe you're both just cowards. What do you think of that?"
Donnan just glared at him, his teeth firmly clamped on the inside of his mouth. Clearly they were drunk enough to go looking for a fight, although they seemed to be clear-headed enough to look for a fight they knew they could win. Still, he hoped that if he was silent they would lose interest.
Reese appeared to be getting frustrated. "Well, answer me, dammit."
"I think it doesn't matter what I say because I'm just goin' to get pummeled," he retorted angrily.
He half-laughed. "You are smart. For a poor, skinny dishwasher, that is." Then he punched him in the stomach.
Donnan's knees gave way, and the other two guards dropped him. He fell to the ground, trying to catch his breath.
Reese grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him up. "You stay away from Aolani. She's too good for the likes of you or that brother of yours," he snapped. He released his grip, and Donnan stumbled backwards, panting heavily. "I don't care if she talks to you, like she did last week. Don't even ask. Don't get near her."
"She can go where she wants," he gasped. "I'm not in charge of her."
"Then don't talk back to her. Don't tell her lies," he shouted. "You're just an upstart dishwasher. You have no right to talk to a lady like her. You have no right to talk to the likes of