The Guardian Mist Read Online Free Page B

inheritances, and they’ll both lose out if we don’t know which was first.”
    “You don’t have to explain. It’s hospital policy to make note of birth order,” the nurse at her feet explained in a brusque tone.
    Cassia sighed in relief. It might be hospital policy, but the nurses had no idea how important it was. They were free to find love in their own time and in their own way. This new baby, the oldest, had only twenty-five years, otherwise she was doomed to be alone and miserable forever.
    The other nurse smiled at Cassia. “Congratulations, they’re both healthy and happy and look amazingly alike, even down to their red hair. You’re a very blessed woman.”
    Cassia heard her mom snort but ignored it, exhausted. Tired of her life, tired of being unhappy, tired of the curse hanging over her head. She wasn’t sure exactly how curses worked, but there was obviously an ancient god out there somewhere who was displeased with the trick she’d tried to pull by giving up her firstborn, and was getting back at her.
    How did she know?
    She’d dreamed it.
    A beautiful woman had come to Cassia in a dream.
    She’d had weird dreams all her life, but this one was different. It had seemed so real . The woman had been wearing a damn toga and sat on some uncomfortable-looking stone bench thing. A man was standing next to her. He was good looking, even if he looked funny in his matching toga with leaves in his dark hair, which was too long and curling around his neck. His hazel eyes were piercing and Cassia somehow knew he could kill a man without a second thought. But when he’d looked down at the woman at his side, his eyes lost that lethal glow and softened.
    The woman was tall and slender and had beautiful dark auburn hair, unlike Cassia’s own pale red frizzy mop that she’d loathed her entire life. In the dream, the woman had reached up and taken the man’s hand, and Cassia saw the reason her life was miserable on the woman’s finger. The ring. It shone crimson, so bright that it made Cassia’s heart hurt at the sight she’d never gotten a glimpse of in her entire life. Nor had any of the women in the three generations before her.
    The woman’s voice was soft and melodic and made Cassia want to weep, it was so sad and beautiful at the same time. “You have been given another opportunity to make things right. Your firstborn will find her true love. She will live a long and happy life, as will her daughters—but that happiness will not trickle down to you. The ring must be returned to your family and you will be granted another eldest daughter.”
    Cassia had always been defiant and even in her dreams was no different. “How can I have another oldest daughter? That doesn’t make sense.”
    “You are pregnant with a girl. This is another man’s child and she is the oldest of that man’s loins. You have another chance to make this right. For your future, for her future, and the future of your granddaughters twenty times over. It’s up to you. This is your absolute last opportunity. The ring has been dark for too long. This is the last chance for you, for the ring, and for your ancestors.”
    “Damn it all to hell!” Cassia had spat in her dream. “It’s not that easy to find true love in this century! Not like it was for you.”
    “Lucius and I have discussed this. You’re right. Times were already very different even one hundred years before you were born. Your ancestors all had difficulties finding their loves, but not like Marcellina, Maxima, and Juno.”
    Cassia had thought the woman in her dream might be Theodosia, the woman who had started the legend, but referring to the man by her side as Lucius confirmed it. How she knew the names of her great-grandma, grandma, and mother was beyond Cassia, but it was a dream, so she guessed anything was possible.
    “Your daughter will experience signs throughout her life, hinting at her soulmate, so when they cross paths, she’ll recognize him immediately.