Leesa had not told Dominic about the dream, so she quickly explained her vision, including the fact that she had seen it three times now.

  “Each time it was clearer and more complete,” she told him after she had summarized the story. Her eyes shifted to Ralin, who was still sitting on the ground, watching her with a curious expression on his face.

  Leesa looked back at Dominic. “Apparently, Ralin has experienced the same dream,” she continued. “What does all this mean? Do you know anything about this kind of dream sharing?”

  Dominic straightened up and shook his head. “I’m sorry—I have no idea what it might mean. I’ve never heard of it occurring before.”

  Leesa was shocked—and concerned. It seemed like something Dominic should have experienced, or at least heard about.

  “Really? In all those centuries, this has never happened?”

  “Not to my knowledge. And if it had, I think I would have known.” Dominic stroked his pointy beard. “Your bond with Ralin is different from any other bond in waziri history. He is your biological child, not simply a carefully chosen apprentice. It makes sense that the bond between you would be closer and stronger than any previous bond amongst our people.”

  “That makes sense,” Leesa mused. “Pretty much everything about Ralin’s magic is new in some way—why should his dream magic be any different? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what a shared vision produces. The events we saw take place far in the future, plus none of us appeared in the dreams. Maybe the vision won’t end up having anything to do with us.”

  Dominic continued fingering his beard. “We can hope that will be the case.” He allowed himself a wry grin. “Somehow, I doubt you will be so lucky, though.”

  Leesa’s lips curved into a smile of her own as she stood up.

  “Me either. But like I said, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

  There was just one problem with that—Leesa didn’t like waiting. She never had, not once her magic had started appearing out of nowhere, anyhow. Her powers had arrived in frustratingly slow drips and drabs, completely out of her understanding and control until Dominic had shown up and begun training her. Even then, much of her progress had been annoyingly slow and inconsistent.

  One especially bothersome thing about this shared dream was that Ralin seemed to have seen more than she had. His vision had shown him something hers hadn’t—the world on the other side of the portal. He had seen a queen he called the horse lady, whatever that meant. This queen needed help, though Ralin didn’t know why or what kind. Leesa now wondered if the dream had originated with her, and then Ralin had somehow picked up on it, or if perhaps the vision began with him and she was the one who had come aboard later. And had Ralin dreamed it repeated times, as well? She needed to know.

  “Ralin, have you had this dream more than once?” she asked him.

  Ralin had apparently reached his limit for sitting still, because he pushed himself to his feet and then jumped up and grabbed a branch ten feet above the ground with one hand. Hanging from the limb like a monkey, he swung slowly back and forth.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t remember.”

  “Do you remember when you had it?” Leesa asked. “Was it last night?”

  Ralin grabbed the branch with both hands and swung himself effortlessly up onto the narrow limb, where he balanced himself easily. Clearly, he was now less interested in all this dream talk than Leesa was.

  “I don’t remember,” he repeated. He dropped down and grasped the limb in both hands, swinging again. “Sorry,” he added.

  “That’s all right, sweetheart,” Leesa said. “But if you do remember, you’ll tell Mommy, right?”

  Ralin nodded vigorously. “Yes, Momma,” he promised, before launching himself from the branch into an adjoining tree.

  Rave took Leesa’s hand. “I guess you were right,” he said as they watched their son swing gaily among the branches. “We’ll just have to wait and see if anything comes of all this.”

  They didn’t have long to wait—and when it happened, it was something beyond the bounds that any of them could have imagined.

  CHAPTER 3

  A WEEK PASSED UNEVENTFULLY. With each dreamless night—and with no further mention of the dream from Ralin—Leesa’s concerns slowly ebbed. The first night, she had considered attempting to summon the dream to see if it might have more information for her, or at least to try to see as much as Ralin had. She had discussed the idea with Dominic, but the wizard had offered no real advice, telling her this was one decision she would have to make for herself. In the end, she had decided that letting sleeping dogs lie was probably the best course. Unless Ralin brought up the dream again, she was not going to risk stirring things up.

  Ralin continued to struggle with the everywhere/nowhere technique—it now appeared as if his progress the day he told Leesa about his vision had been an anomaly, not a marker of some hurdle crossed. Dominic was a patient teacher, though. He continued working on it with Ralin each day, because it was the foundation upon which so much more could be built. Ralin did not appear to be nearly as patient, however. He often squirmed and twitched when he should have been sitting relaxed and motionless.

  No one made an issue of his difficulty, however—he was still only five years old, after all.

  After a week of clear, beautiful spring weather, a storm front swept in from the west. The morning broke gray and threatening, with gusty winds pushing dark, ominous-looking clouds across the sky. Rain seemed inevitable, perhaps even a thunderstorm. Leesa hoped they got one—it had been too long since they had enjoyed a real storm.

  Since weather posed little issue for any of them, they filed outside as usual for their morning practice. Even though Ralin had little control over his magic, his natural volkaane heat kept him warm in any temperature, and if it did rain, that same heat evaporated the water from his skin and clothes just like his father’s.

  Outside, they began with Leesa’s practice. Ralin settled onto the old rope swing to watch. Sometimes he found his mother’s efforts amusing; other times he quickly grew bored and found his own ways to entertain himself. He always started by watching, though. Rave stood nearby. For his part, he never grew tired of watching Leesa or Ralin.

  Leesa had grown proficient enough and confident enough in her magic that she no longer needed to warm up with previously mastered spells the way she had done in the past, but learning new spells could still prove tricky and challenging. Such was the case with the spell she had been unsuccessfully trying to cast for the past several days.

  She and Dominic got right down to business.

  “Watch closely,” the wizard instructed. “The darkness spell is not an easy one to visualize.”

  Leesa knew how true that was. She had been trying to perform the darkness spell for the last few days with no success at all. The string of failed attempts was beginning to remind her of those frustrating days when she had been trying to learn to create an air shield. She had eventually learned that, so she had no doubt she would master this one at some point, too. She just wished it would happen soon.

  Visualizing a spell was usually the key to mastering it. She fastened her gaze on Dominic as the wizard got ready to cast the spell.

  “Drakmarata numidus,” he called out. He didn’t really need to voice the spell out loud—his centuries of mastering the waziri magic had long ago rendered that unnecessary for most spells—but he did it for Leesa. At the same time as he uttered the magic words, he waved his right hand slowly across his body in front of him. Behind his hand appeared a tall swath of darkness so black Leesa could see nothing inside of it. Dominic had effectively disappeared in the blackness.

  She turned to Rave, wondering if his keen volkaane eyesight might be able to pierce the magical darkness.

  “Can you see him?” she asked.

  Rave shook his head. “No, I cannot. I’ve never encountered such total darkness. He’s still there, though—I can hear him. He just took two steps to his left.”

  “He moved again!” Ralin said excitedly. “I heard it.” He jumped down from the swing and leaped into the blackness. A moment later, the darkness disappeared, revealing Dominic holding Ralin in his arms. Both were smiling.

  “I jumped to where I heard his breathing,” Ralin said proudly. “My aim was perfect.”

  “That it was,” Dominic agreed as he lowered the boy to the ground.

  “Show off,” Leesa said to her son as she tousled his hair with a smile on her face. “Now go over by Daddy. Mommy needs to concentrate.”

  Ralin scampered to Rave’s side. Leesa took a couple of slow, deep breaths while she replayed in her mind everything she had just seen Dominic do. Finally, she felt ready.

  “Drakmarata numidus,” she chanted loudly, moving her hand in front of her body and visualizing darkness following behind it. “Drakmarata numidus.”

  Just like her efforts of the previous few days, nothing happened. She sighed in disappointment. A far off rumble of thunder seemed to accent her feelings.

  Dominic recognized the frustration on Leesa’s face. “No negative thoughts,” he reminded her gently. “This is not an easy spell. You will get it eventually. Sooner if you remain positive.”

  Leesa nodded. Avoiding negative thoughts was one of the first things Dominic had taught her about learning magic. Such thoughts did nothing but stifle and delay progress. Unfortunately, avoiding them was often easier said than done.

  Striving to remain positive, she began analyzing the events of the last few minutes, beginning with Dominic’s demonstration. As far as she could tell, it had been exactly the same as the previous few displays, at least until Ralin leaped into the blackness. She understood how Ralin could have known where Dominic was from the sound of his breathing, but how had Dominic caught Ralin so easily? Dominic did not possess volkaane vision or hearing, so how had he done it?

  The glimmer of an idea came to her. If what she was thinking was true, it could be a key to successfully performing the spell.

  “Do the spell again,” she told Dominic. “Let me watch it from behind you this time.”

  Leesa saw a glimmer of a smile on the wizard’s face as she moved around behind him.

  “Okay,” she said when she was in place. “Go ahead.”

  “Drakmarata numidus,” Dominic chanted again.

  The view from behind Dominic revealed something very different as he moved his hand in front of his body. The spell did not envelop him in a cloud of impenetrable darkness as Leesa had previously thought. Instead, a shadowy dimness followed his hand, still dark, but not totally black, more like a nighttime shadow produced by the light of the moon. In form, the darkness was more like the kind of air shield she would use to block an attack than the sort she had cocooned baby Ralin in to protect others from his magical outbursts.

  She could see the dark outlines of Rave and Ralin’s silhouettes through the dim curtain, though she could make out no details of their faces or their clothes. Now she understood how Dominic had caught Ralin so easily. You could see through the darkness your spell created, yet she guessed that from the other side, the blackness would be as complete as before. She suspected you could probably wrap the darkness completely around yourself if you needed to, but that was a matter best left for after she mastered this part of the spell.

  Dominic could have told her all this, she was certain, but he liked it when she figured things out on her own, even if it delayed her progress initially. In the long run, doing so gave her a better understanding of her magic.

  “Now I get it,” she said as Dominic waved the blackness away. “This is a whole different visualization than what I’ve been using.” She stared sternly at the wizard, chastising him with her eyes for leaving out the information, but he only grinned.

  “Let me try again,” she said.

  She stayed where she was, using the visual she had just witnessed.

  “Drakmarata numidus,” she said loudly as she passed her hand in front of her body in the same manner Dominic had.

  This time, a narrow swath of dimness appeared behind her hand, more like a thin grey mist than the black curtain Dominic had created. Still, it was something. She knew she could build upon this. It might take awhile, but eventually, she would master this spell. All it needed now was practice and more practice, and she was no stranger to that.

  “Congratulations,” Dominic said. “The first creation of any magic is always the most difficult. Do it again, while your success is still fresh in your mind.”

  Leesa performed the spell several more times. Each time, the dimness grew larger and darker, though it was still nowhere near where she wanted it to be. Ralin provided her with proof of that.

  “I can still see you, Momma,” he called from the other side after the last incantation. He ran toward Leesa and jumped through the shadowy curtain into her arms.

  She caught him with a grunt and gave him a quick hug before setting him down. He was getting too big for her to hold him up like that for very long. She wished she had Rave’s strength, so she would never have to put Ralin down.

  “My turn now,” Ralin said. “I want to do magic.”

  Dominic looked to Leesa, who nodded. She was satisfied with today’s progress and wouldn’t mind a bit of rest while Dominic worked with Ralin. She crossed over to Rave and put her arm around his waist while Dominic turned to Ralin.

  “Okay, your turn,” the wizard said with a smile. Before he could say anything more, a loud peal of thunder rumbled overhead, so powerful it almost seemed to shake the ground.

  Ralin clapped his hands delightedly. Unlike many young children, he was not afraid of thunder—instead, he enjoyed it. He loved lightning, too.

  “Magic!” he said excitedly.

  Leesa looked upward. The sky had darkened considerably, but there was no sign of rain yet.

  “Not magic, sweetheart,” she said. “It’s just thunder.”

  “Magic,” Ralin insisted.

  Leesa smiled at her son’s persistence. “Okay, you win. Magic it is.”

  Dominic put his hand on Ralin’s shoulder. “Are you ready to begin?” he asked.

  Ralin nodded eagerly.

  “Everywhere/nowhere, then,” Dominic said. “Begin with the breathing.”

  Leesa saw a flicker of disappointment pass across Ralin’s youthful features. She knew her son wanted to do real magic—especially after the thunder—not a relaxation and concentration technique. Still, he dutifully closed his eyes and began.

  As Ralin breathed several slow, deep breaths, his features began to soften and relax. After a moment or two, though, his eyeballs began moving rapidly back and forth beneath his eyelids, like the Rapid Eye Movements during sleep Leesa had learned about in her freshman psychology class. This was something she hadn’t seen before in Ralin, so she edged closer, wondering what was happening. The thought struck her that perhaps it might be connected to his dream.

  Ralin’s mouth suddenly fell open, allowing a cloud of bright green magical energy to float slowly out. While Leesa, Rave and Dominic watched, the energy blob continued to expand outward. Rave reached out and poked the edge of the pulsating green light with his finger.

  “It’s not hot,” he said as he drew his hand back. “Whatever this is, I don’t think it’s related to his volkaane fire. This is wizard stuff.”

  Leesa and Dominic exchanged questioning glances, but neither had any idea about what was occurring. Ralin’s magic leaking out on its own accord was nothing new, though it happened less frequently now than when he was a baby, or back when he was still inside Leesa’s womb. The magic had appeared in beams, spirals, corkscrews and tiny fireworks-like displays. It had never shown up in this manner, though.

  So far, they had failed to discover any real purpose to the magical outbursts, no matter what shape or form they took. More often than not they turned out to be benign, but sometimes they could be dangerous. Their house still bore several scars where Ralin’s power had damaged it, and there were trees missing branches in the woods beyond their yard as a result of his uncontrolled magic. Which way this new manifestation would turn out they couldn’t know. All they could do was watch and wait to see what happened.

  As the amorphous mass of glowing green energy continued to grow, the watchers took a step back, Leesa and Rave to one side, Dominic to the other. The cloud was opaque enough that they could still see each other through its flickering light.

  Suddenly, a blast of thunder exploded directly above their heads, accompanied by a bright flash of lightning. Ralin’s magic seemed to explode along with it. The green energy engulfed Leesa and Rave in a blinding green flash. Dominic reflexively threw his arms up in front of his eyes.

  When the wizard’s vision returned a moment later, he stared at the spot where Leesa and Rave had been standing. There was no sign of either one of them. The grass was completely unmarked and Ralin’s green magic had disappeared, but Leesa and Rave were gone. He looked at Ralin. The boy’s expression was one of puzzled confusion.

  “Where did Mommy and Daddy go?” he asked. He didn’t really sound worried, just curious.

  “I’m not sure,” Dominic replied softly.

  He quickly cast his magical senses over the place where Leesa and Rave had been standing moments before, but he detected nothing except a very low, general residue that told him magic had recently taken place there. What kind of magic, he had no idea. The minute vibrations of the residue were completely unfamiliar to him.

  Moving carefully, he stepped into the center of the spot where Leesa and Rave had disappeared. The faint vibrations he detected remained unchanged. He bent down and passed his hand slowly over the top of the grass in a wide circle, but sensed nothing different. Frustrated, he pulled up several blades of grass and sniffed them, then stuck one in his mouth and tasted it. It smelled and tasted like ordinary grass.

  He poked his finger down through the grass into the soil beneath. He smelled and tasted it, with the same result—nothing.