I waded to the rocky shoulder and dragged myself out onto one of the large dark boulders. Sienna stepped out of the waterfall, her hair plastered to her head, her face pale; she made her way to the other side of the cave and collapsed on her back.

“Are you okay?” Roman asked.

“She watched her child die,” Evdokia said. “Let her rest.”

Rest was a luxury I couldn’t afford. “Is there are any version of this that doesn’t end with Atlanta burning and my son or Curran dying?”

“No,” Sienna said. “I’m so sorry.”

“How long have you been seeing this?”

“Over the past month.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sienna sighed. “I hoped I was wrong.”

“Could you be wrong?” Roman asked. “These are only possibilities, not certainties.”

“Predicting the future is like looking into the narrow end of a funnel,” Sienna said. “The further in the future the events are, the more possibilities you see. The closer we get to the event itself, the clearer and more specific the most likely future becomes. These visions are too detailed. They are almost a certainty. As of now, one or the other will come to pass. The son or the father gives his life, Atlanta burns, and the rest of us suffer. I can’t see any other possibilities. Believe me, I tried.”

She turned her head and looked at me. “I tried, Kate. If Atlanta burns in that battle, I die.”

“We all die,” Evdokia said. “Everyone in this cave, except Kate.”

“I can’t see you in this battle,” Sienna said. “It’s hidden from me.”

If she was seeing it in that much detail, these visions had to come from the very near future. “How long do we have?”

“A year at the longest if you don’t marry Curran,” Sienna said.

That meant sentencing our son to death. “And if I do?”

“Two weeks.”

Two weeks? What do I do? How do I fix this?

“You’re the wild card,” Evdokia said. “She can’t see you.”

“It means one of two things,” Sienna said. “Either you are irrelevant to what happens or you are the pin on which this future hinges. If it’s the latter, then you have the power to alter it.”

If only I knew how.

“This is just typical.” Roman raised his eyes upward. “The one time I try to do something good, like join two people who are long overdue in holy matrimony. The one time! And it all goes to hell, doomsday prophecies and death. I’ve served you for ten years. Would it kill you to have my back one damn time?”

“Yes, of course, make it all about you.” Evdokia sighed.

“Wait, you’re marrying them?” Sienna asked.

Maria chortled. “He’ll anoint them in blood. Should’ve asked Vasiliy.”