Page 12 of Harbinger
Cassius’s belly clenched at his words. Victor frowned.
“A warning?” Morgan repeated.
Galliad bobbed his head. “Regina received a vision. A Harbinger.”
Cassius’s pulse stuttered. Morgan’s pupils flared.
“What the hell is a Harbinger?” Jasper snapped.
“Let him speak, Jasper,” Brianna rebuked gently.
Galliad did not answer Jasper’s question straightaway. “Regina foresaw two things.” His words fell leadenly in the strained hush hanging over the room. “A darkness that will sweep through all the realms. And the war that will follow it.”
Kazmi and Strickland stilled, their expressions darkening. Cassius and Morgan shared a nervous look.
“A darkness?” Deep lines now furrowed Victor’s brow. “What kind of darkness?”
“One that carries the wrath of a deity.”
There was a sharp intake of breath all around.
“Do you mean Elios?” Theo asked harshly.
Galliad shook his head. “No. Regina did not divine the God of Darkness’s corruption in this contagion.”
Reuben flinched. “Contagion?”
“So, this darkness is a disease?!” Jasper asked sharply.
Cassius clenched his jaw. “What makes a Harbinger different from Regina’s other visions?”
“Regina’s premonitions normally come to her in dreams. She rarely sees them during the day. If she does, she enters a trance-like state, like she did when the war demons attacked our capital.” Galliad paused. “A Harbinger is delivered to her by a divine messenger or a divine being, while she is fully conscious. Her mind is transported to a neutral void between worlds for the span of a moment that can last a heartbeat in our time, but which may stretch over several minutes in the other.” Dread clouded his expression. “Regina has only ever received one Harbinger before. And that concerned the War in the Nether.”
Cassius’s heart thumped heavily. “By divine being, do you mean a God?”
Galliad dipped his head. “Yes. In this instance, it was a Goddess. One of the Fates, to be precise.”
Cassius’s chest tightened. He shared a stupefied look with Morgan. “Atropos!”
Galliad’s eyes rounded. He looked wildly between them. “How did you know?!”
“She’s the one who helped us find Boreas,” Morgan said dazedly.
A thousand thoughts swirled through Cassius’s mind as he stared at the floor.Has Atropos been assisting us from the shadows all along? If so, why has she not made her presence known to us?!
Reuben went over to Strickland’s computer, logged into a secure database, and brought up a series of images on the digital display on the wall. “This contagion. Does it look something like this?”
Eden paled. Brianna cursed. Cassius’s stomach roiled.
The faces of those who had died from the mysterious disease they’d just learned of were almost unrecognizable under the black stains and pustulant sores distorting their flesh. The hairs rose on Cassius’s nape when he saw the clouds captured in some of the images. He’d thought it was smoke at first. But the satellite shots did not lie.
The plague’s true form was a dark fog that was moving rapidly across the Earth.
Blood drained from Galliad’s face.
“By the Gods!” he mumbled hoarsely. “It’s already here?!”
Kazmi rose, a heavy frown marring her brow. “Thisis what your seer saw?!”
