The Trinity War (Book 3 of the Trinity series)

Chapter 29

I sat staring at the flicker of the flames from the campfire in front of me, pulling the blanket Gerrard had given me taut around my shoulders.

When Gerrard had found me, I was getting ready to stab myself in the heart with an imaginary dagger, which in reality turned out to be an energy ball that was oliterating my energy supplies fast. He had shaken me and shouted my name before I woke from the reverie that I was in. Then he pulled me out of the fog and into a clearing up ahead where we set up camp. The greenish fog lay still a few hundred yards behind us.

"It was magical," Gerrard said, "the fog. I could sense the magic within once I became aware of it."

I sat quietly, my mind occupied with the images of my hallucination. Gerrard explained to me that the Air Nation must have used the fog as a protection measure. He said that the air particles in the fog were thick with hallucinagenic molecules and that the Air Nation probably wanted to drive away anyone that came too close to it to prevent them from finding their location. 

After Gerrard explained all of this to me, he sat beside me silently. He didn't try to comfort me by putting his arm around me or anything. He just sat and stared at the fire with me. The silence between us stretched out, encompassing us like the fog had. After a long moment, Gerrard finally spoke again.

"What did you see?" he asked.

I didn't answer. Not right away at least. Instead, his question triggered tears to well up in my eyes. The images from what I had seen flashed in my mind's eye. The grief that overwhelmed me enough to drive me to suicide just an hour ago returned. But this time, I fought it off. I clutched the water stone on the necklace that Trey had given me and calmed my nerves. Once my emotions were in check, I answered his question.

"I saw my worst nightmare," I said, my voice hollow, my eyes still fixated on the dancing flames in front of me. "I saw a battle, and Trey and I were facing off. And I was losing and he was relentless. And he hated me for betraying him, for working with the dark side, for lying. He hated me so much that even when I begged and pleaded for him to stop hurting me, he didn't. And when I told him I loved him, he told me he hated me. And then he killed me. And the worst of it was, he felt no guilt for doing it," I told him.

Gerrard didn't say anything. And why would he? He had warned me from the very beginning that my actions, once known to Trey, would be my ultimate downfall. He had told me to keep my distance from Trey, to keep my emotions under control. But I didn't listen. Instead, I went ahead and got engaged to Trey. And with my worst fear come to life in the fog, the reality of my mistakes became so much more certain. And that hurt.

"What did you see?" I asked after a long moment of silence. 

"I saw..." he trailed off, licking his dry and chapped lips. "It doesn't matter what I saw. What matters is that we got out of there," he told me.

"How did you fight it off? How did you stay in control?" I asked, finally tearing my eyes away from the fire to look at him. He looked straight back at me, the reflection of the flames dancing in his blue-grey eyes. 

"I knew that you were somewhere behind me and that you needed my help. My concern for your safety and the promise that I had made to protect you overcame whatever I saw," Gerrard replied.

My eyes welled up with tears.

"I wish I had the same strength as you," I said.

"It has nothing to do with strength, Caley because you are very powerful. It has to do with conviction and remembering what you are fighting for. If you love Trey and you know that he loves you, then you need to have faith that everything will turn out just fine. But if your worst fear is that he will leave you once he finds out what you've done, then maybe you two shouldn't be getting married after all," he said.