Maelstrom

Twelve

[absit omen]

"Mark?"

"Hmm?"

"Have you been listening to a word I've been saying?"

Mark's leg froze where it was bouncing up and down in anxiety at the derision lacing Dale's voice. He widened his eyes and straightened up, meeting the daughter of Demeter's intense stare sheepishly.

"Sorry," He muttered, scratching the back of his neck. "I can't really focus on anything right now."

Dale sighed, leaning back in her chair as she stirred the coffee in her Styrofoam cup. "You're hopeless."

Mark narrowed his eyes at her. "What'd you say?"

Dale drained the coffee, exhaling when she was finished. "I said, my dearest Mark, that you're hopeless. You're like a spurned puppy."

"Am not."

"Are too."

Dale tilted her head at Mark, fixing him with a look that read 'Oh, please.' "Mark, come on. What's it going to take for you to admit it?"

Mark glanced at the shut door, behind which was one daughter of Nemesis that Mark desperately needed to see. "Admit what?"

"That you're in love with Ad—"

"—Hara!" Mark shot to his feet as the door opened and Adhara emerged. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Adhara said simply, although her voice was laced with something that Mark couldn't place. She flicked her violet eyes up to meet Mark's, and Mark wondered if this was what it was like to stare into a crystal ball and see violet mist curling around the glass, possessing some knowledge that only few were privy to.

"Adhara," Mark's voice was hardly above a whisper, yet Adhara flinched at the sound of her name. "Please."

Adhara met his gaze, and for a second, Mark thought that was going to slap him. However, she sighed and sank down into the chair beside Mark's. Despite looking like she'd seen a ghost, the chair became Adhara's throne.

"I don't exactly what you want me to tell you," Adhara said, each word clipped as if she were dancing around something.

"We need you to tell us what happened to you," Dale said, leaning towards Adhara. "We've heard bits and pieces, but you're the only one that knows for sure."

Adhara bit her bottom lip, her eyes everywhere but Dale and Mark. At last, she blew out a long sigh. "I...had dreams. Terrible dreams. All of you were in them."

Mark drew his eyebrows together. "You dreamt of us?"

Adhara pursed her lips, focusing on some point in the distance. "I saw things that I'd only heard of. I saw Tessa in Chicago, raising a river. A cave-in in California. Kaya vaporizing monsters after Alex's death. It was like I was watching them all happen, and I was powerless to stop them."

"Was that all?" Dale asked, golden eyes beseeching.

Adhara shook her head. "There was a woman. I was standing on some ruin, and a woman appeared before me and started chanting in a language I didn't know, but I understood every word."