Chapter 29
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
I’m standing in the library again, surrounded by those impossible shelves that stretch into starlit darkness. The golden orbs floating overhead have dimmed to a soft glow, casting everything in warm, honeyed light that makes the space feel different. More intimate.
“You came back to me,” Adric says, and I turn to find him emerging from between the stacks. He’s dressed more casually than before—dark pants and a white shirt open at the throat—but he’s no less devastating.
“I didn’t mean to,” I say honestly.
“And yet your presence here means that you wanted to.” His smile is warm. Welcoming. “It’s irresistible,” he says. “This tug between us.” He moves closer, silver eyes soft with something that might be affection. “I’m glad. I was hoping we could continue our conversation.”
I remember the way he’d kissed me. The way it had felt so real, so right. Guilt twists in my stomach, made worse by the lingering satisfaction of last night with Chase, tempered by the cold memory of all those trees—monuments to so many fallen Brides.
Where the hell is he now? For that matter, where is Whistler?
I frown, looking up at Adric as I try to stay calm. I may be alone, but I’m not helpless. Well, not entirely. “I need to see my uncle,” I say. Since I’m here, I’m not about to pass up the opportunity. This wasn’t the plan, but it was the goal. So, I might as well leap all over that.
The thought makes me frown. Because why am I here but Whistler and Chase aren’t? And does Adric even know that we were sneaking in through a back door? For that matter, how did he get me here at all?
I don’t know, but I’m not worried. Or, at least, not very worried. I don’t believe Adric will hurt me. And maybe this will work out even better. Maybe I’ll be able to get Finn free. Or maybe I’m hopelessly na?ve and totally screwed.
“Please, Adric,” I say. “I need to know Finn’s okay.”
“Of course, you do.” He gestures toward a different part of the library, and the space shifts around us, creating new passages and alcoves. “This way.”
I follow him through the maze of books, trying not to notice the way the light catches in his hair, the fluid grace of his movements. Everything about him is designed to seduce, to draw me in. I need to remember that.
“Here,” he says, stopping beside a pool built into the library floor. The water—if it is water—shimmers with an otherworldly light.
“A scrying pool,” I whisper.
“Very good.” He sounds genuinely pleased, like a teacher praising a particularly bright student. “Look and see what you need to see.”
I lean over the pool, and the surface ripples. Images form in the light—Uncle Finn sitting in what looks like a comfortable study, reading a book by a fireplace. He appears unharmed, even relaxed.
“He’s really okay? This isn’t a trick?”
“I would not harm this man of your blood.”
“You had to know that taking him would hurt me. That I’d be terrified. And that I’d hate you for doing it.”
His expression hardens. “Kali took it upon herself to acquire your uncle. Leverage. And revenge.”
“Leverage, I understand. Revenge, not so much.”
He runs a strand of my hair through his fingers. “Revenge, because she knows her place in my heart. And,” he adds, his voice heavy with passion, “she knows yours.”
“Oh,” I say, then swallow. “If she’s right—if you truly care for me—then let him go. Especially if you didn’t order the capture in the first place.”
He shakes his head. “I would be a fool to release such an effective advantage now that I have it,” he says, the manipulative words almost apologetic in tone. “But I can promise you that he’s comfortable and safe. As you can see, he’s being treated as an honored guest, not a prisoner.”
“He’s a prisoner.”
Adric edges closer to me, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his body even before he puts his hands on my shoulders, then leans in, his words a whisper when he says, “I need you to understand what’s at stake here, Cora.”
“What do you mean?”
“The barriers are failing faster than even I anticipated.”
“How fast?”
“There’s no way to say for certain. A millennium,” he says, and I sag with relief.
“Or perhaps no more than a week. I don’t know.
Even the scrying pool cannot foretell the future with true accuracy.
But what I do know is that a time is coming when they will fall completely.
When that happens, there will be peace among my four realms, but I will be unable to help yours, my love.
It will be like your Wild West. Lost and lawless.
And in a much darker world than an empty prairie. ”
I shudder, trying not to imagine what would happen if the inhabitants of the other four realms could easily slide into our world. Chaos, yes. And worse than that.
“Your realm needs someone with the power and knowledge to maintain order.” His reflection appears in the pool beside mine, silver eyes intense. “That someone could be us. Together.”
“I don’t want to rule anything.”
“Don’t you?” His voice is soft, seductive.
“Can you really tell me that you don’t welcome the power that grows within you?
You, who spent a lifetime shuffled aside by others.
Don’t you rejoice now that you are finally becoming who you were meant to be?
Don’t you crave the power and resources to carve your own path? ”
I don’t answer, but he must see something in my expression because he smiles. “And don’t tell me you’ve forgotten our garden so soon.”
“Adric, no.”
“You could have everything,” he continues. “Power beyond imagining. The ability to protect everyone you care about, to reshape the world according to your will. All you have to do is—”
“That’s enough!” The familiar voice cuts through the room like a blade, sharp and deadly, as if to remind me of how much is at stake. Chase.
I whip around to see him striding toward us in his familiar black jeans and tee, his arms covered in tats. His hair is tousled and wild, and his golden eyes burn with barely contained fury.
Part of me wants to run to him. The rest of me freezes, still remembering the trees, the dead Brides, and the cold sting of betrayal.
“Hunter,” Adric says coolly, but I catch the flash of irritation in his silver eyes. “Didn’t our mother teach you that it’s rude to interrupt? Oh, wait. We had no mother, so let me be the one to break it to you, brother dear. You’re not welcome here.”
“Good.” Chase’s gaze finds mine, and I see something that looks like hurt beneath the anger. “Because she’s coming with me.”
“I don’t think she wants to,” Adric replies smoothly. “Do you, darling?”
I honestly don’t know how to answer that question, so I’m weirdly relieved when Chase jumps into action, that familiar golden rope lashing out from his hand and wrapping around my waist. Then with one tug, I’m flying through the air toward Chase, not sure if I want to cry out in relief or scream at him to release me.
Not that it matters, because escape is really the only thing on the agenda now, what with the library beginning to crumble around us, books tumbling from shelves as reality shifts and warps. Through the chaos, I hear Adric shout something in a language I don’t recognize, but it’s too late.
Chase catches me against his chest, one arm banding around my waist as he propels us toward what looks like a massive hole torn in the library wall to reveal nothing but a star-filled sky.
Then he’s diving through it, my body held tight against his, and we’re falling, faster and faster, until something golden appears beneath us—a magnificent dragon with scales that shimmer between gold and bronze, wings that span impossibly wide, and intelligent eyes that look up to fix on Chase with what looks like love.
We land on the dragon’s back, and I barely have time to register the sensation of powerful muscles moving beneath us before we’re rising, the wind whipping through my hair as we soar through a sky painted in shades of purple and silver, the nightmare realm spreading out below us like a twisted fairytale.
It should be terrifying. I should be screaming or clinging to Chase in panic.
At the very least, I should snap that he’s the last person in the world I want to rescue me.
But I don’t. Because right now, I feel more alive than I have in my entire life, even though I know this is only a dream.
The rush of wind and speed and impossible flight fills me with a wild and delicious euphoria like nothing I’ve ever known—and that’s almost worse than hating him.
“This is freaking awesome,” I shout over the wind, and I feel Chase’s answering laugh rumble through his chest where I’m pressed against him.
Below us, the world twists and breathes like something alive.
The ground ripples with shadow and light, the forest shimmers with an eerie blue glow, and rivers of molten silver twist through valleys carved from obsidian.
In the distance, a castle rises from the earth—dark and broody, like something from a horror movie, and yet still magnificent, with spires that gleam like black glass, and walls veined with crimson light that pulses, as if the stone itself has a heartbeat.
“Is this real?” I ask, though part of me already knows the answer.
“Real enough to matter.”
The dragon cuts through the night air, its wings slicing through clouds that glimmer faintly with dreamlight, and as I look around, my fear vanishes.
This time, I’m not the victim, fighting monsters in the Nightmare Realm.
Now, I’m seeing another side of this strange and beautiful place where shadows take form and light dances.
I’m not Cora Lyte, confused college freshman.
I’m not even Cora, the potential Bride. I’m something else—something fierce and untethered, born of nightmares and stars.
Chase holds me like I’m precious and powerful all at once—and it’s intoxicating. For a moment, I want to beg Chase to let the dragon take us away. To get lost in the beauty and the wildness.
But I can’t. Uncle Finn needs me. And though I can’t see it, I know that somehow, we’re still traveling. Still tethered to Whistler.
And we need to hurry to our landing spot so that we can rescue Finn and bring him home.
“He pulled me here,” I say. “We have to go back now.”
“We are,” Chase says as the dragon dips toward the ground, picking up speed.
That’s when the mares attack.
Three of them, coming out of the dream-mist with burning eyes and snapping jaws. Our dragon shrieks and banks hard as skeletal hooves rake across its flank.
“Hold on!” Chase yells.
I obey with one hand but thrust out with the other. “Reverti!” I cry, and even though I have no idea where that word came from, I’m not at all surprised when the closest mare shrieks and falls away from us, as if desperate to obey my command. The second snarls, wriggling before bursting toward us.
Without thinking, I hold out my hand again, this time expecting the power that explodes from me like streams of silver and gold twined together, raw and wild and brutal enough to consume the attacking mare, her dying screams echoing over the dark hills below as she tumbles down, down, down.
I whip around, looking for the third mare—only to see it already racing toward the horizon and getting the hell out of Dodge.
The whole battle takes maybe ten seconds. Tops.
Chase twists on the dragon’s back to gape at me. “Jesus, Cora.”
I stare at my hands, breathing hard, silver and gold sparks still snapping at my fingertips. “I did that.” My voice is soft, barely a whisper.
“You were amazing.” He cups my cheek. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”
For a moment, I go tense, once again remembering those trees and candles. But there are other memories too, like all the times he rescued me in the Nightmare Realm. How many chances he’d had to kill me, and all the times he’d chosen to let me live.
With a sigh, I lean into his touch, still breathing hard. Still reliving the last few moments. Tonight, I’d been the one fighting. More, I’d won. How freaking cool was that?
And then I remember. “One got away.”
“And so did we,” he says, his arm still firm around my waist. “Because of you.”
“It’s time to finally be me, isn’t it?”
“You’ve always been you, Cora. Now, it’s time to learn what that means.”
“I can live with that,” I say. “And the second thing the new Cora is going to do is get Uncle Finn back.” I glance out at the swirling dream-sky, feeling the weight of power humming in my blood. “And then we make Kali pay.”