Chapter 27
Leon
I’d forgotten how boring it is, going to war.
The endless military strategizing that has to happen before you actually get to unsheathe your blade, the discussions about troop sizes and encampment logistics and where to strike when.
Caledon’s search for the artifacts at least means a good portion of the army is already mobilized across Trova, but we have to liaise with the rest before we think about a coordinated attack on Qimorna.
I’m exhausted as I settle into bed beside Ana, and I expect to fall into a restless sleep. But the gods have other plans.
I open my eyes onto a beach that looks like Gullert, where Will Mercer lives. Waves lap against the shoreline, and I see the old soldier walking across the sand in the distance.
Not this again.
This is obviously a dream. Will’s dream. But I never meant to end up here, and I know that if I try to leave, I’ll just end up in someone else’s head.
Since that night in Lavail when I first traveled through others’ dreams, I’ve come up with some theories about how this is happening.
My final conclusion is that someone’s magic needs both body and soul to work, so when mine were forced apart and then yanked back together again, things ended up misaligned.
It’s why I keep getting trapped in the dream realm, unable to control where I go.
But it’s been happening less lately. I hoped I was finding my rhythm again, but it seems the disconnect continues.
I watch Will as he walks closer toward me, unaware of my presence.
Halfway down the beach, his neutral expression changes to one of terror as some rocks sticking out of the sand take on a strange shape.
They look less like stones and more like human heads.
Will drops to his knees, sobbing as the sea foam on the shore starts to turn a bloody red.
I draw away from the scene, conjuring a door and walking through it.
There’s nothing to do now but wait and keep moving, never staying in one dream too long to imprint on someone’s consciousness.
As long as I don’t hang around in their heads, they won’t remember the brief snatch of nightmare in the morning.
Sometimes I manage to snap out of this purely by accident, my magic settling down on its own.
I prefer to wait for that if possible. It’s better than the alternative—which involves Ana realizing what’s happening and calling me back to consciousness across the mooring.
I’d rather get through this without disturbing her.
Now I find myself in a cozy inn I’ve been in before.
It’s the Holms’s place in Otscold, the Fox and Deer.
I guess whose dream this is before I see Tira hurry past. The pub is busy, filled with customers, and she darts around them, handing out drinks off a tray.
Then she drops the tray, the flagons of ale rolling across the floor as she starts to scream.
The crowd of patrons parts, and I see three bodies hanging above the fireplace, tied to the roof beam by ropes around their necks.
I escape through another door before I have to look at the faces of Tira’s family.
It goes on. I must visit five or six more dreams, each one quickly turning to a nightmare once my broken magic touches it.
The endless wheel of horror weighs heavier on my soul with every new scene, until I don’t know if I can take much more. Still, I try to be patient, hoping I’ll slip out of this mess on my own.
Then something changes. I recognize the setting of the next dream I step into. And it’s not just the backdrop that’s familiar. The cool morning air, the way the light hits the rooftops, and the smell—the stench of death—are all known to me.
I’m in Mistwell. This is my dream.
I walk through the streets, passing a woman lying in a doorway, her body half swallowed by the shadows of her house. Her eyes are unseeing.
I don’t want to be here. I’ve explored this memory more than enough for one lifetime, but as I try to conjure up a door out of here, none appears. Instead, I walk on, passing another corpse, this one a young man dressed in black, a scarlet piece of fabric tied around his wrist.
I try to turn my head away, but my eyes are fixed on the sight, my feet carrying me forward against my will. As I head toward the center of the town, dread rises in my heart. I know what I’ll find there: the pile of fallen soldiers. A crazed Herrydan, ready to cut his own throat.
I dig my feet into the dirt, trying to fight my own magic. I won’t go any further. I refuse.
And yet my legs keep moving, my footsteps pulling me toward the town square. I roar with frustration.
A hand catches mine.
“It’s going to be okay, my love.”
I look over my shoulder, and Ana’s here.
Her chestnut hair tumbles over her shoulders, her hazel eyes shining brightly at me.
She’s a beacon of life amid all this death.
As she tugs on my hand, my feet stop at last. I manage to turn, and she pulls me in close, tilting her face up so she can meet my eye.
“I’m here now. And we’re going to stop this for good, together.”
I know she’s right. Somehow, we are the answer to my faulty magic. Together, we can bring my body and my soul back into alignment.
She presses her hand to my heart, and the sound of her own heartbeat swells around me, vibrating in my chest, until our pulses fall so perfectly into rhythm that I don’t know whose belongs to who.
I let my body thrum with the sensation—even though I’m only in the dream realm, every nerve feels alive.
“Stay with me,” Ana says, her voice soft and strong at the same time. “Focus on me.”
She pushes up on her toes, tugging me down by my neck to press our foreheads together.
I try to do as she asks, wishing we were far away from this ugly place.
Almost as soon as I have the thought, the light shifts around us.
The morning sun over Mistwell disappears, and a warm glow like incendi lamplight rises up around us instead.
We’re finally somewhere away from the dreams, a place where it’s just her and me—I brought us here.
The idea gives me hope. Our lips touch, and the mooring comes alive, burning brighter as I wrap my hands around Ana’s waist. She slides her hands across my chest—which is suddenly naked, as is hers.
I don’t know when we lost our clothes, but we both seem to know what to do, letting our bodies collide.
With every inch of our skin that touches, something’s slotting into place. As our bodies entwine in the dream world, the separate threads of me are twining back together too. Through my connection with Ana, my magic and my soul are finding their way back together.
I feel a surge of gratitude toward her as the sensations reach a shattering crescendo…
I wake to find us tangled together, my legs hooked between hers, her arms wrapped around me. Ana opens her eyes seconds after me. The heat burning between us is palpable.
As I meet her gaze, I’m certain that my magic won’t spin out of control again. I’m safe from the endless nightmares, and it’s all thanks to her. To us. To what we’ve built together.
We’re both breathing heavily, gasping together, sweat on our skin as if we really have just been making love. I’m rock hard, and even through her nightdress, I can feel the sweet dampness between Ana’s legs.
“That was…” Ana murmurs, clearly lost for words.
“Perfect,” I say, kissing her, sliding my tongue against hers so I can taste her like I did a few moments ago in our minds. I can feel her breasts peeking through the thin fabric between us, and her knees open a little wider so she’s nestled closer against me.
A dream isn’t enough. I need to possess her in that realm and this one.
I trail a hand up her leg, curving my fingers over the soft skin of her thigh. She shifts, tilting her pelvis toward me, and my cock twitches in response. That little desperate movement, the way she presents herself to me, wordlessly begging to be fucked, drives me insane.
“Do you want me to make your fantasies real, my love?” I murmur across the mooring.
She smirks wickedly, though I make her breath hitch when I dip my fingers between her legs, my touch whispering across her sensitive flesh.
“I seem to remember we were in your head, my love,” she replies. “That was your fantasy, so I should be making it real for you.”
She pulls away, slipping down the bed and pushing the sheets aside. Her hand finds my cock, gently caressing the head, her delicate touch making me throb with desire. Her mouth soon follows, and as her tongue swirls across the tip, a deep groan rumbles through me.
My hands fist in her silken, chestnut hair, encouraging her.
When she takes me down to the hilt with a throaty moan, it takes every inch of willpower I have not to come.
I raise my eyes to the ceiling, wrestling myself under control even as she threatens to undo me, her fingertips lightly grazing my balls as she sucks and licks.
But I’m determined not to give in, not when I know how good it feels to finish inside her as she climaxes around me. Still, this is a sweet taste of bliss before the main course.
I groan again as she toys with me, her tongue finding sensitive spots I didn’t know existed. The sight of her mouth feasting on me so hungrily pulls me closer and closer to the edge in spite of myself.
“Ana,” I growl across the mooring. “Enough playing. I must have you.”
“I’m already yours, my love,” she replies. “But this is your fantasy, remember? If you want me, take me.”
She releases my cock with a final, satisfied lick across the tip, her smile smug. I wipe it away as I pull her back up toward me, threading my legs through hers, and guiding the still-wet head of my cock across her clit. She quivers in my arms, inhaling sharply as I graze the sensitive nerves.
Even though I’m desperate for release, even though I can feel how ready she is, I don’t take her hard.
When she found me in the dream, when she remade me, I remember how thankful I felt—how thankful I always am for every day I spend with her. She’s a miracle—my miracle—and getting to touch her like this, possess her like this, is the greatest gift from the gods I could ask for.
I kiss her as I bring us both slowly to climax, her leg hooking over mine, our bodies merging so there’s not a breath of air between us.
The muscles roll in her stomach as she lifts her hips to receive me, and I’m aware of every bit of tension in her thighs when I slide inside her over and over again.
As our orgasms hit, I pull her against me, her face burying in my shoulder, my cheek nestled against her hair as we ride the wave of ecstasy.
If I spent the rest of my life like this, wrapped in her, sharing her bliss, I would have a better existence than any other man could claim. I wonder why I haven’t yet found a thousand more ways to bind myself to this woman—each one would surely be as wonderful as the rest.
But there is one way I’ve been neglecting.
“Ana,” I murmur as her cries of pleasure soften into satisfied sighs, and she lifts her hazel eyes to meet mine.
“Yes?”
I brush her hair back from her face, using my finger to trace the line from the edge of her eyebrow down her cheek to her chin.
“I’m a fool for not asking this sooner. It’s unforgivable, but I plan to spend the rest of a long life making it up to you.”
She blinks, pushing her hands against my chest to straighten up and get a better look at me. “What are you talking about?”
“You are all I’ll ever want or need in this world, my love. I intend to make you mine in every way I can. If you’ll let me.” I swallow, oddly nervous as I say the words. “Will you marry me?”
She grins, and a flare burns across the mooring bright as a thousand suns.
“You mean that silly custom that humans make way too important?” she says, lifting her chin up with a cheeky wink.
I don’t remember ever saying those precise words, but it’s true that fae generally don’t put as much stock in the ceremony as Trovians.
“It’s absolutely important,” I reply. “Because after us being moored, nothing would make me happier than being your husband.”
She tilts her head like she’s thinking, and every second is unexpected torture. I know she’s playing with me, but I’m dying to hear the words from her mouth.
“Yes, Leon. I would love to marry you,” she says, and her eyes shine brighter, a few tears in them. “Being your wife would be the greatest honor I can think of—more than having a thousand crowns or kingdoms.”
My heart clenches at her words. So few people have thought it an honor to be tied to me, have felt proud to be associated with my tainted name.
“My love…” Her eyes widen as she feels the wave of emotion run through me. But there’s no need for questions between us. She understands what this means to me, just as I will forever be changed by the joy I feel answering me, knowing she loves me even a shred as much as I love her.
We fall back to sleep—peacefully this time—buoyed up by our new promise to each other. At least, it’s peaceful until a fist pounds on the door, and we’re left scrambling into clothes to answer it.
“What in the gloam to you want?” I grumble as I yank open the door to find Harman, fully dressed and clutching a piece of parchment. His breathlessness tells me he ran here.
“I’ve just got an urgent message from Tread,” he says. “They’ve been monitoring the Temple’s movements in the northeast. We were right—Caledon’s been gathering an army. He’s got hundreds of clerics and citizens he’s recruited from Qimorna.”
“But what are they doing that far north?” Ana asks. “What’s for him up there? The cup? He doesn’t need an army to retrieve that if he knows where it is.”
“He’s heading to the border,” Harman says. “They think he’s planning to invade Agathyre.”