Chapter 16 #2
The answer was honest, at least. I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept without dreams, without hands on my skin and voices in my head and sensations that left me gasping.
She studied my face, taking in the shadows under my eyes that had deepened to bruises, the way my hands shook slightly when I wasn't concentrating on keeping them still, the constant flush to my skin that made it look like I was perpetually feverish.
"You look like someone in love," she said innocently, and the observation hung between us like accusation.
A laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep in my chest, bitter and sharp enough to cut.
The horrible irony of it, that she was right in every way that mattered and wrong in every way that counted.
That I was drowning in desire for beings I was supposed to contain, for princes I'd been raised to see as monsters.
That every drop of blood I fed the Gate only strengthened the connection driving me mad, creating a feedback loop I couldn't escape even if I wanted to.
"Love," I repeated, tasting the word like poison on my tongue. "Is that what this is?"
Ellie's eyes widened at something in my voice, some quality I couldn't control, couldn't hide behind Keeper discipline anymore. "Aria, what's happening to you?"
I wanted to tell her. Wanted to explain about the dreams, the touches that felt more real than reality, the way four princes had taken up residence in my mind and were slowly driving out everything else.
But how could I?
How could I explain that the monsters we guarded against had become the only things keeping me anchored to any sense of self? That their presence in my dreams felt more honest than years of waking life spent in service to lies?
"The Gate is changing me," I said finally, truth wrapped in omission, the only kind of honesty I could offer. "The connection required to stabilize it... it's not what anyone expected."
"Maybe you should stop. Let someone else—"
"There is no one else." The words came out harder than intended, edged with frustration I couldn't contain. "I'm the last of Pandora's line. Without me, the Gate falls. Without me, the world ends. There is no choice, Ellie. There's only duty."
"And if maintaining it destroys you?"
I thought of Kaelen's hands on my throat, gentle despite their strength, despite the fact that those same hands could probably snap my neck with barely any effort.
Flynn's teeth against my shoulder, marking without breaking, claiming without damaging.
Thane holding me like something precious instead of treating me like the jailer I was.
Elias burning through me like phoenix fire, showing me visions of who I could become if I let myself change.
"Then I suppose I'll be destroyed."
But even as I said it, I knew that wasn't quite right. The words tasted false on my tongue, like a lie I was telling myself out of habit rather than conviction.
I wasn't being destroyed.
I was being transformed.
The dreams weren't torment inflicted from outside, weren't attacks or invasions. They were responses to my own suppressed desires, to wants I'd never been allowed to acknowledge, to needs I hadn't even known I had.
The princes weren't forcing themselves into my mind.
I was pulling them in.
I was desperate for connection after a lifetime of isolation. Desperate for touch after years of carefully maintained distance. Desperate to be seen as something other than a vessel for ancient magic and a conduit for sacred blood.
That night, I gave up fighting.
When sleep came, I didn't resist. When the dreams began, I didn't try to wake or push them away or recite meditation mantras to clear my mind.
When Kaelen's hands found my throat, I tilted my head back to give him better access, exposing the vulnerable column of my neck.
When Flynn's teeth grazed skin, I gasped his name into the darkness of the dreamscape.
When Thane wrapped me in his arms, I burrowed deeper into the safety of his embrace.
When Elias set me burning, I let myself become ash and be reborn, welcomed the transformation instead of fearing it.
Somewhere between dream and waking, in that liminal space where consciousness blurred, I heard them speaking. Not to me but to each other, their voices tangling in my unconscious mind, having a conversation they didn't know I could overhear.
She's breaking, Flynn growled, but there was satisfaction in it, the pleasure of a predator who'd cornered his prey.
She's choosing, Elias corrected, his voice carrying prophecy and certainty, the weight of futures he could see more clearly than any of us. There's a difference.
She needs us, Thane rumbled, protective instincts flaring even in sleep, even in dreams. Can't you feel it? How lonely she's been?
She wants us, Kaelen said with certainty that bordered on possessive, with the absolute conviction of someone who recognized desire in all its forms. And she hates herself for it. Which makes it all the sweeter.
They were all right.
I was breaking, choosing, needing, wanting, all of it at once, all of it true.
The carefully constructed Keeper who'd bled for duty was crumbling like ancient stone, and in her place rose something wild and hungry and absolutely terrifying. Something I didn't recognize but that felt more authentically me than anything I'd been before.
When I woke for morning ritual, my reflection in the washing basin showed someone I didn't recognize.
My amethyst eyes held flecks of gold, amber, copper, and brown, pieces of each prince claiming space in what had once been solely mine, colonizing my irises with their colors.
The golden marks had spread to my collarbone, creating patterns that looked like armor, like art, like claim marks burned into skin.
They branched and twined in ways that suggested deliberate design rather than random spread.
I was changing.
Had already changed.
Was still changing with every breath, every heartbeat, every drop of blood I spilled.
And the worst part, or perhaps the best, perhaps the most honest, was that I no longer wanted to stop it.
The Gate pulsed in response to my acceptance, cracks spreading further through its surface like a mirror hit with a hammer.
Each fracture sang with possibility, with the promise of what could be if I just stopped fighting what was already happening.
If I surrendered to the transformation instead of clinging to who I used to be.
Come as yourself, Flynn had said days ago.
The problem was, I no longer knew who that was.
The dutiful Keeper was dead, her rigid spine and controlled emotions buried under waves of sensation and connection I couldn't refuse anymore.
The woman in her place was something new, someone who craved what she'd been taught to fear, who wanted what she'd been told to contain, who looked at her prisoners and saw not monsters but men, beings who suffered and hoped and desired just as she did.
Someone who was falling in love with her prisoners.
And who suspected…no, who knew with the same certainty Kaelen used when he spoke of power and desire, they were falling too.
The knowledge should have terrified me. Should have sent me running to the High Council, confessing my corruption and begging for someone else to take my place. Should have made me recommit to my vows with renewed fervor.
Instead, it settled into my chest like a key finding its lock, clicking into place with a rightness that felt like coming home.