I Am Seer - Book 3

Chapter 7 - Wind

We rode as if all of hell were setting the path behind us on fire. Despite the chill in the air, I could almost feel the heat on my back as I sat behind Bohai. The cold air pumping through my lungs seemed to bring a sense of reality home, and I was finally able to clear my head and think through what I was doing.

After the initial shock of my horrible nightmare wore off, I found a growing determination welling within myself. This entire time, I'd been swamped with different information pulling me back and forth in what seemed like a never ending tug-of-war. The realization of how truly foolish I'd been to sit by while everyone dictated what I should do and how I should do it all but slapped me in the face now.

Everyone had eagerly informed me my fate had been determined for me long ago, and all I had to do was accept that fact. Kotaro had been determined to help me run from it and had told me not to let it dictate what I decided to do while everyone else we'd encountered had eagerly encouraged me to resign myself and die. Listening to all their voices, I'd been flooded with confusion, but the fresh air and knowledge that I was choosing my own path this very moment put in a few things in perspective.

Beyond the knowledge that I couldn't run away and leave so many people to die, I knew I, myself, did not wish to die. Despite the odds which seemed to be stacked so highly against me, I wanted to get out of this and live a quiet, peaceful life with Kotaro by my side. The realization came as no surprise: I'd known all this all along, but my brain hadn't consciously driven it home until just now.

Rather than feeling sad and depressed that I would never have this desire fulfilled as I had been for the past few days, a sort of determined anger bubbled ferociously in the pit of my stomach. Who said these horrible visions I'd been having had to come true? Who said they couldn't be changed? No one had imparted that information to me yet, and even if they had, I wouldn't believe them unless I confirmed that to be the truth myself.

It had become far too easy for me to simply surrender myself to all the strangeness that was going on around me, but that weakness of soul was to be no more. There was too much at stake here for me to remain the scared, little girl who let others master her without putting up a fight. Perhaps had the world not been so dark, I could have continued to grow and change at my own pace, but the stakes were too high for that.

Now, as this realization slid firmly into place, two things hammered through my brain with all the speed and power of the mountain horse I was riding: 1. I am going to get stronger to fight back the evil which has oppressed people for far too long and 2. I am not going to let myself or any of those whom I love die in the process. For what felt like the first time, I was going against what everyone thought I should do in order to achieve my own goals, and it felt massively freeing.

Calm washed over me almost instantaneously, and I exhaled the enormous weight which had been overshadowing my perspective. No matter what happened, I wasn't going to stop fighting. Kotaro had been right: my father, my uncle, and David hadn't given up their lives just so I could die.

The cold air blew with sudden fierceness in my face as my thoughts came to a relative conclusion. Gasping, I clung tighter to Bohai and waited for the winds to subside a little, but they didn't. As if they were holding me captive, the breeze encircled me as if holding me in an embrace.

Fingers of chill crawled up my back, wrapping around my neck like a vice. I tried to shake off the feeling as nothing more than my fear that Kotaro would catch up to us which would somehow ruin all my plans, but it held me captive like a ghoul in the dim light of dawn. A breeze slid down the side of my cheek, and an eerily cold voice whispered in my ear:

"Seee-eee-eer."

The words were like a kiss on my earlobe, and my chest tightened at the familiarity of the moment. I'd heard that voice before, but it had been so long ago I'd almost forgotten it had ever happened at all. Of their own accord, my muscles tightened, and fear formed a knot in my stomach.