Chapter 14
Ash
“I’m not mad you know.”
Five words. Well, six depending on what kind of person you are.
They wake me inside the dream. And there’s something else. Something new curling at the edges of my vision. Deep purple. Magenta. The color of ash after fire eats everything worth burning.
It doesn’t touch me. Just watches. Tastes.
“This is the Trial of Survival. You’re living it.” Kestra’s words. Guess she wasn’t being poetic.
And just like that I’m staring into the golden eyes of a dragon.
Black slits that reflect galaxies back at me don’t just see me. They see the past, the present, and the future of all that I am. All that I could ever be.
“Vanessa,” I breathe her name like it’s fucking sacred. Because it is.
Vanessa has always had this unique quality to her. Almost mysterious. Hinged on innocence. I often wondered if she was always that sweet or if it was nothing more than a ruse.
But then one day Vanessa found out she was never human after all.
Long story short, she’s a dragon.
The purple energy pulses. Interested.
Of course. The Trial of Truth showed everyone what I did. The scope. The shot. Greyson crumpling into the sand. Now the Trial of Survival is making me face her.
“Ashlynne.” Vanessa winks, leaning forward on the bar top, her heart-shaped lips wrapped around a straw. She sips on her shake all while watching me watch her.
It’s unnerving in the best way.
I’ve seen her eat actual people. Level a town. Her energy crackles from her into the air all around us.
She terrifies me in the best ways. Because she could kill me without blinking. And she hasn’t. She’s loved me all these years.
And yet, I’ve kept a secret from her for a long, long time.
I killed the mate of a dragon.
And that, that’s what the projector missed. The trial. They all focused so heavily on the betrayal that they had no idea who, or what, I betrayed.
As Fae, they should have known better.
Yet my cousin’s secret is somehow still a secret. And I’m here in our hometown bar, drinking a milkshake. And she...
Isn’t mad.
I look away first. Let her laughter roll through me, unaffected. Her long brown hair tickles my arm as she leans in. “You are going to have to talk about it, Ash.”
I blink the tears away just as they fall. My eyes lock on one of the twins we grew up with across the bar. I know I need to talk. But right now?
Right this fucking moment?
“Now’s as good a time as any.” Vanessa nudges me.
“I killed him.”
Three words I’ve carried for years. Three words I swore I’d take to my grave because telling her meant losing her and I couldn’t—I couldn’t—
My hands shake, even in a dream, and I have to grip them together to keep them still.
The purple energy leans closer. Watching.
“Look at me.”
“I don’t know if I can.” Tears fall and fall, soaking into the hoodie I’m wearing.
An Army one.
What a cruel and awful joke.
“Of course you can.” Vanessa slurps. “You’re just choosing to be a pussy.”
“What?” I gasp, looking at her.
Her pupils are slitted. Two very fine lines that represent the thin line I’m walking.
For the first time in my life, I’m afraid of Vanessa.
“Nessa,” I look between those slits, not daring to blink or look away even as the bar noise rises and falls. “I should have told you. All those weeks of searching.”
“You should have,” she agrees. “You didn’t. And I’m not mad.”
“Why?”
The words don’t compute. I wait for the anger. The dragon fire. The centuries-old rage of a creature whose mate I took.
It doesn’t come.
“Ash, Greyson was my story, yeah. But he made some seriously stupid choices. Persephone was just one of them.” She shrugs and the slits lessen a fraction. “I just wish you felt you could have come to me. Talk to me.”
“How could I talk to you when I was too busy hating myself?” I sob. The words barely make it out. “I thought you’d kill me. I thought you’d…I thought I deserved it if you did.”
“Oh, Ash.” Her voice softens. “You absolute idiot.”
She leans forward, drawing me into her arms and hugging me. She doesn’t say anything. That isn’t Vanessa’s wheelhouse.
It’s this. Hugging you as though you’re one of her treasures. And there’s just something about that energy pulsing through you that cracks the dam a little wider.
Fracturing. Fracturing. Fracturing.
The purple-magenta at my edges settles. Softens.
Like it’s satisfied with what it saw.
“Kieran.” I blink away tears, seeing him walk through the bar door.
But I’m dreaming. And he’s been dream-walking to me since the night he found me in my Academy memory.
“How is he here?” I look between them.
Vanessa pulls back and shrugs, slurping. “Dragon dreams. Anyone connected to you can wander in.” She eyes Kieran like he’s a snack. “This one’s been circling. I let him in.”
She pulls out a stool. “Sit.”
I look at Kieran, really look at him, and that—that is when I feel so goddamn foolish.
My worlds are colliding. The Fae prince I’m bonded to, sitting in the bar where I had my first kiss, being sized up by the dragon I’ve known since middle school.
This is either the best thing that’s ever happened to me or the start of a catastrophe.
Knowing my luck, probably both.
“I’m not dreaming, am I?”
“Oh no.” Vanessa shakes her head. She’s wearing a full white knit dress. “This is no dream.”
Kieran sits beside Vanessa, a wrinkle on his forehead as he stares at her.
I never told him about my friends. About my family.
I never talked much to them about my life.
Only the mission. Always the fucking mission.
And now Kieran is staring at Vanessa with a look of horror as she turns those slitted eyes on him.
“Ash, introduce us.” She holds her back straight as she studies Kieran.
And for the first time in my entire life the oddest thought occurs to me.
If Vanessa eats Kieran in a dream, does he die in real life?
“Kieran, I’d like to introduce you to Vanessa.” I swallow. “Her mate was Greyson.”
“Is,” Vanessa corrects without looking back at me. “He’s just a little more reaper-y now.”
Kieran chokes.
Right. He saw that memory projected during the Trial. The shot. The sand. Greyson crumpling. And what he became after.
“What are you?” Kieran manages.
Vanessa tsks. “Did you not learn to avoid rude questions?” She leans close to him. He attempts to lean back farther. “I will eat you.”
Kieran looks at me, panicked, as everything clicks together.
I’m just not sure he knows she’s a dragon.
“Can we talk about how this is possible, Vanessa?” I grab her arm for her attention. “I dreamt about Sab.”
“We know.” She turns back to me, threading her fingers through mine and scooting closer so she can look at Kieran from my perspective.
It’s just a Vanessa thing.
“What do you mean?”
“She called us. Also, no one had heard from you in a year.” She drops that casually. “We weren’t too worried because your mom said you went undercover or whatever.” She flutters her hands. “But then your mom went missing.”
“She’s with me.” I look at Kieran, whose eyes widen. Understanding flashes as horror across his features.
“Anyway.” She smacks my hand. “But why is he here?”
“Kieran?” I open and close my mouth, look at my wrist, then back to Vanessa. “We have a lot to catch up on.”
“No time.” Kieran shakes his head. “We are coming for you.”
“Us, too!” Vanessa bounces and a puff of smoke explodes out of her in a burp.
Coming for me.
Everyone is coming for me.
I spent years making sure no one could reach me. Building walls. Burning bridges. Disappearing so completely that no one would think to look.
And now I’ve got Fae princes and dragon cousins and probably the entire Greek underworld converging on my location.
The universe has a sick sense of humor. Or I’m just really, really bad at being alone.
Kieran doesn’t fall off his chair—he jumps right over to me, yanking me back into his arms. “A dragon,” he hisses in my ear. “I knew her energy felt ancient.”
“Oh.” I wiggle out of Kieran’s arms. “Nessa, we have something huge in common.”
“Tell me everything.”
“You were hatched, right?”
“Broke right out of my egg.”
“I was a seed.”
“Stop.” She beams. “I love that for you.”
“What the fuck?” Kieran snaps. “We have no time for this.” He wedges himself between Nessa and me. “The Morrigan, her sister, and Dagda are waking Badb. Then we are coming for you.” Kieran’s eyes are unblinking.
Until Vanessa pushes him out of the way. “We are also coming.”
“What? Why?” I shake my head. “You don’t—”
“You think we won’t stand behind you in a fight?” Her eyes go slitted again. Anger rolls off her in waves. “Or cook. Nurture. Eat random people with barbecue sauce?”
“Gods.” Kieran hisses.
“Don’t be foolish, Ashlynne. I forgave your past ignorance but I won’t forgive what you know.” Her voice is hard. No slits this time. Just certainty. “You shut us out again, we will never come for you again. I love you enough to let you go, Ashlynne. Don’t make me prove it.”
The purple energy sharpens. Alert.
That’s not a threat. That’s a boundary.
“You’re right.” I grab her hand, twisting her fingers in mine. “What’s the plan?”
The purple energy pulses with warmth.
And just like that Vanessa is no longer scary. She bounces in her seat, eyes round and normal again. “Okay, so I had to make a few adjustments because of the underworld.” She rolls her eyes. “It’s just us, though. We’ve trapped the men in Tartarus.”
“I will never recover from this.” Kieran takes a step back.
I whip around. “Your father murdered your mother. You are an Unseelie prince and you are terrified of a dragon?”
“Oh, don’t blame him,” Vanessa says. “He can’t help it. Fae are terrified of us.” She smirks a toothy smile. “We have lived in Faerie before. This one probably remembers my kin. Because dragons can kill-kill Fae.”
Kieran chokes.
“Anyway. It’s just us girls.”
“Can I ask what that entails?” Kieran asks.
“Nope.” Vanessa leans in and kisses my cheek, disappearing in the next moment.
Kieran slowly walks over and sits on the stool. “So that was...”
“Vanessa.” I turn to him. “They’re coming for me?”
“So are we.” He palms my face.
“Oh no.” My eyes widen. “Your sister.”
Kestra. Tiana. The plan. I left them in Kieran’s quarters with a half-formed rescue mission, I must have closed my eyes for a second when Kestra said to rest.
“What about her?”
I wake with a gasp.