Constantine (Daughter of War #1)

Chapter 18: The Power to Control

A/N: The beautiful banner above made by the lovely seventhstar! His outfit would be out of place in the medieval ages, but otherwise it's close to how I imagine Gilbert (maybe with a darker skin tone?)

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I start to howl hysterically. I can't help it—the idea of me being a necromancer is just as ridiculous as Diomedes returning from the dead.

Maybe not so ridiculous after all.

Or is it? I can't decide.

Seeing Gilbert's disapproving expression, I sober myself, coughing away the last bits of madness in me. "Sorry," I say weakly, suddenly ashamed of myself.

"So...You're not a necromancer?" he asks. The glare I give makes him wither into his blankets. "But, he – she told me so."

"Who?" I tilt my head to the side. He did collapse rather suspiciously after he bellowed for me to dodge the arrow on the archery field. What if he had experienced a vision during that lapse of unconsciousness? Perhaps it's an effect brought on by the Marks? The thoughts run through my mind randomly. Yet they don't seem so random at all...

"This will sound mad," he says hesitantly, shooting me a quick glance to read my immobile expression. I nod encouragingly, gesturing for him to continue. "After I yelled at you to get down during the assessment to dodge the arrow, I – I collapsed and had a vision."

I lean forward eagerly. "Of what variety?" Gilbert's face turns blank. I try to rephrase my words. "What exactly did you see?"

"It was...black." The answer comes as soon as my question registers properly in his head. "All around. And there was a – a figure, made of red smoke, who spoke to me."

Red smoke. Interesting. "This figure, could you recognise the voice?"

Gilbert shakes his head mournfully. "Its voice was a mixture of many overlapping voices. It echoed of both male and female undertones."

I dig the heel of my right palm into my thigh, trying to force the disappointment rising in me to subside. The pressure point I place on my bone does little to stop a lump forming in my throat. Ridiculous. Why am I so cut up over such a pathetic matter? I shouldn't have expected Gilbert's 'guide' to be an exact copy of mine.

But if his 'guide' was Abner, then at least we could possibly put our heads together to try and figure out who – or what he is. And what the visions mean for us.

"So, it told you that I'm—of all things—a necromancer?" I ask, trying to divert my mind from my indirect dissatisfaction at Gilbert's 'guide'. He gives a curt nod in response. "You actually believed it?" He flinches reflexively.

"I..." Gilbert coughs a few times. He attempts to straighten himself on the bed, as if he can further delay his already slowed reaction to my statement. "I – I was...It somehow compelled me to believe every word it said, no matter how I tried not to. I don't know, it's difficult to explain."

I suddenly recall how Abner forced my anger to subside the first time I entered a vision. Perhaps our different 'talking visions', so to speak, aren't that different at all. "I understand," I finally say, which induces surprise on Gilbert's face. Putting it as plainly as possible, I narrate my experience of my own brand of visions to him, careful to omit the detail where Abner knows my true gender.

When I finally reach the part where Abner told me that Diomedes has resurrected himself, Gilbert's face blanches. "He told you that?" he squeaks.

"Aye." I raise a brow. "Your guide told you that too?"