Scents. One of the many things I did not experience the same way Soren did, though I think I was lucky for that. I wouldn’t have wanted to pick everyone apart by a unique smell anyways. Soren smelled nice enough when we were together and he’d not recently been training, and that worked fine for me.

“And no,” he continued. “I figured you’d gone off somewhere, and I was trying to see where you were. I know we’re technically supposed to be able to do that as the stag and Erlking, but no luck.”

“If it helps, I can’t do it either. I’m a pretty big failure at this whole stag thing.”

“Don’t say that,” Soren said with some anger to his tone. “You’re the first human to have the stag’s power, ever. Of course it’s going to be hard. Now, are you going to tell me about where you were, or am I going to have to beg?”

I sighed, running a hand through my curls. I guessed sooner was better than later. “Sorry if I worried you.”

“Apology accepted,” Soren said, sitting next to me on the sleeping platform. “I know you can take care of yourself. But I still worry. Especially lately. You’ve not … been yourself.”

I took a deep breath and winced like I was inhaling ice shards. “About that,” I started. “Soren, I need to tell you something.”

“I’m listening,” he said, lilac eyes on mine.

Well, it was now or never. A stone dropped into my stomach as I started my story. “I’ve been hiding something from you. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did. I can’t make excuses for it, so I’m not going to try. But you’re right that in the beginning, it was nightmares. But a few months after I became the stag, I began … having visions. At first, it was fleeting, normal life things. But then they became about the end of the world. Then I started seeing him … hearing him, in my head.”

Soren frowned, leaning forward. “Who?”

I turned my head away, unable to keep his gaze. “Lydian. His shade spoke to me, appeared by me, taunted me, warned me.”

Soren tightened one hand into a fist. “I didn’t think he’d even be able to, trapped where he was. I’ll burn his heart; he’ll disappear.” He began to stand, but I pulled him back down.

“No!” I said with a bit too much force.

He sat but looked at me oddly. “No?”

“I talked to Donnar today. He told me a few things. Did … did your father ever mention that he could see the future?” Gods, this was going terribly.

“Once or twice, just that it skipped my generation, why?”