Chapter 18
Reverie
Idreamed of voices.
They rose like wind through the ruins of memory—soft at first, then layered, dozens upon dozens, old and echoing. Some were familiar, like lullabies half-remembered from childhood. Others spoke in tongues my mind shouldn’t have understood, but my blood did.
The air in the dream glowed amber, smoke curling through the dark. I stood barefoot on marble streaked with gold veins—the same throne room I’d seen before, but broken now, overtaken by flame and shadow.
“Child of all of us,” the voices murmured together. “The line endures.”
“Who are you?” My voice was barely a whisper.
“We are the echoes that built you. The Ancestors who carried the crown before you.”
Their words thrummed through me like a second heartbeat. The floor cracked beneath my feet, splitting to reveal light—raw and pulsing.
“Yes.” Their tone deepened—neither kind nor cruel, but absolute. “The queen was but one of many. We are all that remains of what was once whole.”
I took a hesitant step forward. “Why now?”
Because the veil thins. Your Faction rises. And past betrayals must be atoned for.
The marble shattered. A brilliant flare of gold and white light burst upward, engulfing me.
They reach for you, child of our blood. Five lights through the shadow. Five hearts bound by oath and love. Feel them. Call them. Remember.
Beware the sixth.
The light swallowed everything.
And I woke gasping.
My body jerked upright, heart pounding so hard I was scared it would beat right out of my chest. I knew it must be morning, but with the stress from helping with the Varruk’s escape and my strange dreams, it felt like I’d barely slept at all.
Then I felt them.
A pulse of warmth, no longer just a vague feeling.
Jet.
Oren.
Nathan.
Zeke.
Zane.
They weren’t just names but pieces of me snapping back into place.
I stumbled out of bed, my breath catching. My hands trembled as light flickered beneath my skin. The Nexus mark burning—still invisible to the naked eye—the bond pulsed like a living thing, each thread connecting, weaving, calling.
It was overwhelming—heat and ice and static all at once—but beneath it was something steady, achingly familiar: them.
I pressed my palm to my mark, tears spilling freely now. “You’re alive,” I breathed. “You’re really—"
“Here.” Oren breathed into my mind. “And we’re coming.”
The pulse of their energy faded back into my bones, leaving me trembling but alive in a way I hadn’t been since I was torn from them.
Outside, Bellona’s dawn bells tolled—a cruel, mocking sound over the city of blood and spectacle.
I thought of everything that stood in their way and the danger we all faced. “Don’t come to the coliseum, wait for word from me, and above all, stay safe.”
“I love you, my Nexi.” Nathan’s voice felt like a caress.
“We’ll see you soon,” the deep voice of Jet sounded in my head.
I noticed that no one agreed to wait until further notice.
“I love you all to the depths of my soul, but you have to wait until it’s safe.” I pleaded with them.
“Trust us.” The twins spoke in unison in voices that didn’t seem wholly human.
I felt them cut off the connection before I could respond. “Those hard-headed bastards better not get themselves killed,” I murmured to myself.
The whispers of my Ancestors lingered faintly, wrapping around me like smoke.
The blood remembers. The bond endures.
And for the first time since being here, I believed them.
Icould barely contain my excitement as I went to breakfast. So far, there hadn’t been any consequences from the Varruk’s escape. He was so powerful that it wasn’t surprising at all that he managed to escape on his own.
I knew that I would probably still be punished for what had taken place in the arena, but if the Ancestors were with me, then I’d be gone before that happened.
“You five better be safe.” I waited a moment, but no one responded. My heart beat a little faster knowing it wouldn’t be long until I saw them again.
“Can you believe that all of the creatures escaped last night? Including your new best friend.” Torren came up from behind me, startling me with his question.
I ignored the best friend comment, “That's what all the alarms were about? He should never have been locked down there to begin with.”
“I can’t imagine why not. They’re just creatures after all, some of whom should be eradicated.” He narrowed his eyes at me in challenge.
“Maybe,” I said, noncommittally.
“Maybe? That’s all you have to say on the subject?” Torren grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop.
I jerked my arm out of his hold. “What’s your problem?” It’s like the kiss never happened. This man blew hot and cold like no other.
“I just find it annoying that some of us are here to find a Faction and some of us are here to be some kind of hero.” He growled in my face.
“Are you fucking kidding me? I didn’t come here voluntarily, so no, I’m not looking for a Faction.
I already have one after all.” I pushed his chest with both hands and tried to shove him backwards, but even with my strength, he didn’t budge.
“And I would have surely died if the Varruk hadn’t stepped in to help.
So, no, I didn’t want to kill a being who helped me live to fight another day! ”
“I’ve heard about the guys in your Faction, and I’m not impressed. You'd better get with the program, or you’re going to find your stay here increasingly difficult.” He growled, then turned and stomped back the way he’d come from.
“What the hell?” I mumbled under my breath.
Where the crap did that come from? He’d been mostly kind since I’d met him, but it was like he took my actions personally. He could go fuck himself for all I cared. I had no regrets concerning Vee.
I entered the dining hall, filled a plate, and then sat in the back corner. The room was mostly empty because it was very late and the day after the coliseum battles.
“Who were you talking to earlier, you felt upset?” Zane’s voice startled me, and I dropped the eggs I was scooping into my mouth.
“It was nothing. I can’t believe you could feel that.” I ducked my head to hide the wide smile that overtook my face.
“There’s a lot that’s changed since we bonded. Also, I wanted to let you know I enjoyed the meal you provided the other night.” I could hear the heat in his voice.
“What are you talking about?”
“The tasty snack I had in the classroom.” I felt him smirk. “I had no idea that was a fantasy of yours.”
He couldn’t be referring to the sex dream I’d had about him… could he?
He laughed huskily, “I’ve always wanted to desecrate an instructor’s desk.”
Holy shit, he was. I suddenly felt shy because it had been so long since we’d seen each other. “We weren’t even able to communicate then.”
“At the time, I thought it was my dream, but there was always a little doubt. I wanted to believe I’d been able to visit you, but I didn’t know it was possible.
Seems you found a way to visit me instead.
” I could hear the smugness in his voice.
“Shit, Oren is giving me his pay-the-fuck-attention look. Sexiest twin, out!”
I couldn’t contain my laughter, and the few people who were in here gave me strange looks. I just waggled my brows at them and continued eating. There wasn’t much that could ruin my good mood today.
A warrior I was unfamiliar with entered the room and kept glancing furtively at me. He filled a plate and then headed in my direction. “Is this chair taken?”
“No.”
I didn’t elaborate because after everything that happened yesterday, I was short on trust. It would be just like Selene to send an unknown to collect intel. Trying to find out if I had anything to do with the Varruk’s escape.
He sat and began eating, but was obviously casing the room.
I took the opportunity to study him. Green eyes and mocha skin, complemented by lots and lots of muscle.
He was a beautiful man, but I wasn’t attracted to him in the least. There was something familiar about him, too, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before.” I wasn’t able to contain my curiosity.
He turned to me and grinned. “You wouldn’t have. I just arrived last night in the middle of all the chaos.”
“You weren’t involved, were you?” I asked the question, hoping that if Selene did send him, it would throw him off.
He leaned closer. “Nope, I was too busy planning a trip to the Catalina Wine Mixer.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?” Did I hear him right?
He grinned, “I’ll be in touch. Someone I’m close to wants to plan some activities for later.” Giving me a wink, he left the table.
I was too stunned to move. Only Chloe would use Step Brothers to let me know I could trust someone. Was that crazy redhead here? Did her brothers know?
We weren’t required to train the day after coliseum battles, but I usually did a quick workout, anyway. Today, I really needed to move. I needed the focus. Knowing my guys were here and that Chloe might be had me on edge.
I walked out to the training yard and retrieved my short swords from the armory. The air still smelled of blood and ozone from yesterday’s fights. Every muscle in my body demanded to be stretched—I needed movement.
I took my swords into my hands and began slowly.
Breathe. Step. Pivot.
Each movement bled into the next. My wrists remembered the weight, my shoulders the rhythm of survival. But this morning wasn’t about fighting—it was about listening.
The whispers came softly at first. The same voices that had guided me in dreams the last few days—Ancestors whose names I didn’t yet know. They wove through my mind like threads of smoke.
“Balance is forged, not found.
The blood remembers.”
My blades glimmered faintly as if the steel itself pulsed with their words. I sank into a low stance, exhaling fire. It licked across the edges, not burning but purifying.
Sweat mixed with something else: energy—a hum beneath my skin, answering the call of every soul who came before me. My movements grew sharper, faster, no longer mine alone. I could feel several others add to the precision in my strikes, another Ancestor’s grace in the turn of my wrist.
I felt Pantar watching approvingly from the shadows, his eyes unblinking, tail sweeping slowly. The connection between him and me snapped back into place.
I stopped my movements abruptly, trying to find him with my eyes, not just with my mind. “Pantar, are you here?”
“I never left you, Nexus.” I heard his voice in my head.
Then, I felt him leave abruptly. It seemed like everyone had shown up to rescue me.
Suddenly, the training yard blurred, colors bleeding at the edges. The dawn haze fractured into shards of light and shadow until I wasn’t standing on packed dirt anymore. I was in marble halls.
A throne room.
Marble stretched beneath my feet, white streaked with gold and ash. The throne room was heavy with smoke and ruin. Queen Lilibet, I, stood at its heart—armor split at the shoulder, crown cracked but gleaming through blood and dust.
Before her/me six men knelt. Ambrose, Merritt, Bren, Zenon, Larkin… and Kratos.
Their loyalty was a living thing in the air, electric and fierce. Five of them held their heads bowed, devotion carved in every line of their faces. But one—Kratos—kept his eyes lifted. They burned not with reverence, but with conflict.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Not you.”
Kratos stood and stepped closer. His expression was raw, almost pleading. His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear the words—only the tremor of them, thick with pain.
Lilibet shook her head once, tears tracing paths through the grime on her cheeks. Then the light around them erupted.
Golden sigils flared across the marble, searing symbols I couldn’t read. A deafening roar split the vision, part grief, part fury—and then everything shattered into shards of sound and light.
I hit the ground hard, the training yard rushing back in fragments of color and breath. My palms burned. Faint lines of gold still lingered beneath the skin, pulsing like a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.
“I saw him,” I whispered. “Kratos… and her.” The words caught in my throat. “Something happened between them. Something that broke everything.”
The voices of the Ancestors stirred, but none spoke. Only the wind answered—carrying the ghost scent of smoke and salt, like Aurathia was remembering a heartbreak older than itself.
“Reverie!” Seamus’s voice broke into my musings. “Prepare yourself. You’ve got another match tonight.” He smirked evilly.
“What?!” We never fight two consecutive days in a row. I pushed myself slowly to my feet.
He laughed. “Today is special. You are much in demand after your last performance.”
Fuck! I knew that yesterday wouldn’t go unpunished, but I never thought it would take place in front of everyone and possibly mean my death.
There’s no way I can let the guys know. They’d get themselves killed trying to rush my rescue.
Seamus was still laughing as he left. I saw the guy from earlier in the dining hall slip into the shadows behind him, giving me a slight nod of his head before he disappeared.
Shit. What the fuck was I going to do now?
“Survive.” I heard the ghostly whisper of one of the voices that had plagued me lately.