Chapter 20
MERYN
Tonight I fight sleep, just like every night, but exhaustion wins. After everything that’s happened the past few days—the coronation, Izabel, the Phylax betrayal—my body has reached a breaking point.
I’ve barely closed my eyes before I open them to that blurred and shadowy place, the space where Killian’s magic and mine seem intertwined.
Turning around in dread, I already know he’ll be there. He’s lounging on what looks to be a throne made entirely of shadow. Intricate curls and knots of shadow magic move slowly, lazily, creating a stomach-churning impression of the throne being alive somehow.
Killian’s eyes are bright, and when he smiles at me, he reveals a hint of fang.
Even now, with everything that’s happened, the sight is so wrong. My skin crawls. I squeeze my eyes shut tight, trying to will myself out of this place and back into my bed.
I cannot fucking deal with him right now. Or ever.
“Oh, now, Meryn, don’t be that way.” His voice, so familiar, makes me hot and cold all over. “Come talk to me. I’m sorry about Izabel; I know she was important to you.”
I grit my teeth, refusing still to look at him.
“Was that you?” I snap. “Did you supply the poison?”
Killian sighs. “Haven’t I made myself clear, kitten?” The old nickname pricks me like a knife, and my eyes jump to his, narrowing. “I don’t want to kill you, Meryn. I love you. Come now. We could avoid all this trouble if you’d just let me love you the way you deserve.”
One corner of his mouth pulls up in a smirk as his gaze rakes over me. I shudder, hating the flashes of memory that unwillingly skate across my mind: him washing my back, his lips on my ear, my neck.
His hands, touching me, unmaking me.
“And Phylax?” Shadows gather and swirl around my feet like a thick, inky mist as I move closer to where he sits. I stop just a few feet away, staring him down, refusing to be cowed by this lying snake.
“Of course Phylax came to me; they’ve always been the loyal ones,” Killian says smoothly, rising to stand.
“They know better than to abandon their rightful king. Alpha Tormun saw the truth. Phylax are the guardians, the protectors. And right now, they think their duty is to protect the people from you.”
“I—I don’t believe you,” I sputter. The Bonded were thrilled by what I did at the coronation. It makes no sense that an entire pack would turn around and willingly abandon me. Killian must have… done something.
Alistair Brightbane is the most powerful Siphon in history, as far as we know. If anyone could pull off deceiving a Bonded Alpha, it would be him and Killian.
“No?” Killian’s eyes bore into me as he draws closer, voice almost a whisper. “The nobles have seen it for themselves, now. They know you have no control over your powers. They went running back to their fiefdoms in fear, Mer. You know what they’re calling you? The Mad Bitch of Sturmfrost.”
Tears prick at my eyes, shame welling deep inside me. I don’t believe him; and still, there is truth in what he’s saying.
He takes another step toward me. “You are gambling with our entire kingdom on the line. What’s going to happen to everyone now with the front lines so weakened?”
The darkness is dense, crushing. I suck in a breath, feeling like I’m drowning. Killian moves closer still, one elegant hand coming up to cup my cheek, thumb stroking softly against my skin.
“It’s not too late for us.” His voice is seductive, his touch so familiar.
For a moment, I lean into his hand, my body betraying me.
“Let me forgive you, kitten. Let me take you back. We can rule together if you’d just submit to me.
Together, we’ll figure out a way to get rid of Alistair.
I can be the king this country has always deserved. ”
He pauses and searches my face before continuing. “Are you really going to surrender our nation to Astreona, all for your ego and arrogance? Bring us to civil war, just to choose a crown over the man who loves you?”
At the word man, my sense of self-preservation finally surfaces, and I recoil, half-jumping backward and out of his reach. My face burns, still feeling his caress.
“You’re no man,” I growl. “I’d rather die than rule beside a monstrous, bloodsucking parasite possessed by a body-snatching creep. I am the rightful queen by blood. I am the one the crown called to.”
Killian’s face contorts with rage, his mask coming off. The shadows grow violent, whipping around us like a tornado.
He lunges forward, grabbing my wrist, his hand painfully tight around that damn engagement bracelet, pressing it deep into my skin.
“You are mine, Meryn. I won’t forget that, even if you’re pretending to. How’s your sister doing, by the way?”
At those words, my fury flares, and something breaks. A light shines in my mind, and I sense the edges of this realm, and beyond them, somehow. Like the whole thing is a thick film that can be peeled up and away if I can just focus.
I turn away from Killian, screwing my eyes shut and putting all my energy into rejecting this shadow realm.
I will myself to wake. Somewhere on the other side of the shadowy wall is Anassa. I can almost hear her voice in my head.
Shadows pull at me, trying to wrap around me tight, keep me in, but I wrest them away. Killian’s voice twists and morphs as if he’s speaking to me through water.
Just—there, on the other side of this sickly darkness, there’s something—
I wake with a jolt. My nightclothes are stuck to me with a layer of sweat, and I gasp, kicking the stifling blankets away.
My wrist aches. I stare down at the bracelet, move it up my arm slightly, and look at the angry ring of red that looks almost burned into my skin.
I want it off. Goddess, I want to get rid of it so badly. We were placing all our hopes on Tormun’s capture of Killian and now…
When will I ever get rid of it? Will I be bound to him forever through this? Forever letting him corrupt the pack magic and siphon off my own?
The room is dark except for one sputtering oil lamp, but the darkness is totally different from that of the dreamworld. It’s cool and empty instead of that sickly dense pressure.
For a second, it’s still pressing in on me, and I scrub my hands against my eyes, trying to block out the feeling, the sound of Killian’s threats.
I allow myself a single, aching scream of rage, desperation, grief.
Then something scrapes loudly across the floor, and I nearly jump out of bed.
“This time,” comes a low, controlled voice from the dark corner near the door, “tell me the truth about what’s happening to you.”
I blink as Stark emerges from the darkness, his massive frame unfolding from the armchair in the corner of my room. Has he been watching me sleep?
He stares at me steadily, and I know: There’s no way he’s going to leave my rooms unless I give him some answers.
My hands are still trembling from the dreamworld encounter as I stare up at Stark, a nightmare in his own right. He’s only a foot or two from me, one strong arm braced against the bedpost of this goddess-cursed bed, expression unyielding. His dark eyes burn with some emotion I can’t name.
He’s terrifying as always.
And beautiful as always.
Right now, I’m too exhausted and wrung out to get into one of our little bickering matches. Unburdening myself sounds like a relief. “Fine. I was considering telling you anyway.”
Ducking around him, I turn up the lantern by my bedside, an ornate, multifaceted thing.
On the sitting table in my room is a pitcher of water and two delicate glasses; I pour myself a glass and gulp it down in a single swallow before filling my cup once more.
The water soothes my throat, cools me down enough to gather my thoughts.
“I’ve been unable to sleep for… well, for weeks now, I suppose. When I sleep, sometimes it’s normal, dreamless or silly bits and snatches of dream. But sometimes I find myself in this… place. It’s like a whole realm made of shadow magic, the same one that I have…”
Stark regards me silently.
“…and that Killian has, too, because of this damn bracelet.” I gulp, take another sip of water.
“It’s real. It’s not just an ordinary dream.
I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like my magic has been manipulated to create a place where we can talk and interact, even though he’s leagues away.
He said he didn’t make it, but I don’t believe him.
There was also… there was a voice once.”
Stark’s eyes narrow at this. “A voice?”
I set the glass down. “A deep, male voice.”
“Alistair?” Stark asks.
I shake my head. “No, Killian said that Alistair can’t access this space. I heard the voice before Killian started showing up. I…”
I don’t know what to make of it. I’m worried, even still, about the possibility of my mental health slipping. Of delusions setting in. Of my power taking me to the brink, and the possibility of crossing into a place I can’t return from.
My mother heard voices. And maybe it was because of suppressed magic and her unclaimed birthright, but… maybe it was something more.
“Perhaps that part really was a dream,” I eventually say.
I return to the foot of the bed and perch there, both comforted by and wary of Stark’s angry presence.
“This is only the second time that it’s happened,” I continue, looking up at him. “I can’t sleep. I’ve just been living in fear that if I close my eyes, I’ll end up back there. He was awful.”
I’m twisting my engagement bracelet around my wrist violently. The ruby that was once so beautiful to me now looks like an angry bloodstain clotted with darkness against my skin. I make myself stop.
“He was awful,” I repeat softly. “The things he said… he’s never going to let me go. He can get into my head. Literally get into my dreams. He has my powers.”
Stark is looking at me intensely, his mouth drawn tight.
“And I can’t get this fucking bracelet off!” My final word comes out as a wail, and I realize I’m spinning the bracelet again, over and over like it’ll make a difference.