Chapter 14
Carwyn dived to the side and landed in a barrel roll to avoid the dragon fire being breathed towards her.
Large wings flapped, keeping Selene in the air as she ceased spewing flames from her maw.
She quickly sucked in a harsh breath through her fangs as she snapped her snout toward Carwyn and let loose more.
“Let me in!” Carwyn yelled, casting an imaginary gust of wind to blow the flames to the side and away from her – she wouldn’t have been able to do that in real life.
Selene refused to let her get near the memory flickering an image on the surface of the waters of her subconscious.
Once the flames receded, a snarl reverberated throughout the blackness.
“Get out!”
“Please! I’m trying to help!”
“No! You vile witches have done enough! You seek to warp my mind, my memories!”
“I just need to know the curse they used on you!”
Selene screamed out her next roar, following it with flaming breath that streamed in all directions. Her clawed paws clenched under the enraged agony she must be experiencing.
While her snout was pointed the other way, as was her gaze, Carwyn sprinted for the memory, ready to dive into it.
Flames engulfed it before she could get there, and she gasped as she was forced to change her trajectory and scurry backwards to escape them.
Then a gust of darkness speared the middle of the inferno as a snout of black scales, followed by dark-red eyes, breached it.
Claws struck, slapping Carwyn to the side, then Selene barrelled into the ground and rolled, only to slide across the inky water on four legs. Carwyn cupped her face as agonised whimpers broke from her, and blood bubbled through the gaps between her fingers.
Shock cooled her, and she trembled as she sat propped up on her hip. Just as the dragoness charged, Carwyn released her hold on the dream-walking spell, and her consciousness returned to her body. She drew her fingertips from the sides of Selene’s human-formed cheeks to cup her bleeding face.
A sob broke from her as she held the lines going over her jaw and down her neck. She was thankful it wasn’t deep enough to slice open her jugular, but with how much she was bleeding, it’d definitely been nicked.
Tears welled in her eyes. “How do I hide this?” she cried, scooting backwards on her arse from the violent dragoness who lay there peacefully. “Perhaps I can pretend I’m sick?”
She’d have to laze in bed all day, but it was better than Kier discovering her sliced jaw and throat. He’d question it otherwise, as it was obvious it was done by a dragon.
“Will he turn on me? Eat me?”
When she noticed a drop of blood had fallen on the stone ground, dread crawled through her belly.
She hastily rubbed it with the skirt of her dress and scrambled to her feet.
She looked through his medicines and dipped her finger into a questionable paste.
She smeared it over the evidence of where her blood had fallen, being careful to ensure no other crimson droplets had been left behind, and she hoped it was enough to hide the scent.
Then she fled from the room and into her own.
With her free hand, she threw open her satchel to obtain her healing ointment and some bandages.
“The excuse of my fertility blood won’t last much longer.”
Surely he’d start to question its duration... and why she was so tired all the time. He’d grow curious as to what she was truly doing all night if it apparently wasn’t sleeping.
“And we’ve only just started getting along.” Tears dotted her eyelashes, collecting and growing heavier. “Will he kill me? I don’t want to die.”
She sniffled as she lathered her skin with the salve, and the cooling sensation helped with the burning pain. Then she whispered the chant that would begin its healing process, and immediately the bleeding slowed.
On her knees, Carwyn threw her face into her bloodied hands.
“She won’t let me in, no matter what I try.”
There were a few memories Selene wouldn’t allow Carwyn near.
She thought one might be the death of one of her sisters, or maybe the aftermath of Selene’s grief regarding it.
Another was the one where her brother and parents died; she’d already accidentally stumbled into it but was quickly chased out.
It was the one she’d seen of Kier flying as he argued with his sister.
During subsequent dream walks, Carwyn had caught glimpses of that same argument playing on the surface of the inky water between Selene’s four paws as she’d guarded it within her consciousness.
Anything that revolved around intense pain, grief, or suffering, she fought to keep Carwyn away.
“I can’t blindly skip through them all.”
The dragoness had to be centuries old! Going to the outlands of her subconscious allowed Carwyn to pick which ones she dived into, rather than jumping sporadically around. To jump around without some sort of map could see her repeating this night... forever.
“And he’s almost done,” she whispered. “In a day or so, he’ll be done with the books and then he’ll discard me for a different witch.”
She was failing. Her time was running out.
She drew her hands away to weep as she stared at her palms. “I’m going to lose any chance of my freedom. I’m a white witch – I can’t do dark magic. I can’t do what they do. I can’t cast magic on my eyes to see the essence of a spell. If I could...”
If she could at least see the symbol and the incantation used with it, she might be able to unlock it.
Carwyn leaned over her knees to bury her face against them. “Valerie... please save me. Save me like you did Aldora, like you helped Kaeylyn. Please, I need you more than ever. Your magic is stronger than mine. You’ve hunted for secrets Mother would forbid. You might know the spell.”
Could a sisterly bond reach through time and space so Valerie could hear her? She was desperate.
A clatter sounded in the distance, and she gasped into alertness.
“Oh shit!” she whispered, staring at all the blood on herself, her dress, and the top sheet.
She removed her dress and tossed it next to the bucket she used to wash and then dunked her hands inside to clean them.
Now that the bleeding had slowed and the ointment had soaked in, she washed her face, neck, and top of her breasts, hissing through the stinging agony the water brought her flared wounds.
Then she stripped the bedding and threw the blood-speckled section into the water alongside her dress to submerge them. She reached into her satchel, pulled out a special salt, and lifted her hands above it to chant softly.
All it did was remove stains, but the soap she poured in moments later should, hopefully, hide the scent of her blood.
Then she stopped and listened, waiting for another clamour, another sound, and none came. So she threw on her underdress she’d been using to sleep in and retrieved a new sheet for her bedding.
She grabbed the furs and threw them over herself to hide, waiting and listening.
Fear thumped in her chest, flooding her veins with each erratic pound of her pulse and making it throb wildly in her torn face.
The only noise in the darkness she’d created was her frantic heart, her shallow, harsh breaths, and the slight shifting of material.
There was no other evidence of sound or life.
Just her and her terrified thoughts.
She licked her lips nervously. I... I wonder if I can convince Aysu to free me. After their lengthy conversation today, Carwyn knew she’d won the sea dragon over. Maybe she’ll take pity on me.
Guilt nipped her heart, but she thought, She told me to tell her if he hurt me.
She could lie and say Kier had struck her, which was the reason for her face, and it might make Aysu scurry off with her.
Carwyn clenched her eyes shut, feeling so awful for having such an idea.
I don’t want to do that. He’s... he’s not so bad. He hasn’t been cruel.
He could have been.
I’m the one doing the wrong thing here.
All dragonkind would be utterly repulsed that she was walking through the mind of one of their brethren. She clamped her hands together as a tear finally slipped from one of her eyes to land against the bedding.
I want to go home.
For a long while, Carwyn lay there, worried he was awake and roaming and would discover her current state. She stayed curled on her side, listening. Even when her eyes drooped and her heart ceased its panicked rhythm, she waited.
The lack of sleep over the course of days thwarted her terror, forcing her weary eyes closed until tiredness pulled her under. Even the horrible sting of her face couldn’t stave it off.
An overwhelming crash of horrid emotions forced her eyes to flip open in a snap. They weren’t hers. They were foreign, intense, and rife with agony.
Ripping herself away from the touch to her face, she sat up, only to freeze while she bundled the furs to her chest. Her eyes were wide, stark with horror and fear as she peered into a set of ruby ones.
A masculine human face greeted her, harsh in expression, sculptured in appearance. Lightly tanned skin, as she’d always thought it’d be, was framed by a slash of black bangs hanging over one eyelid.
The emotions that had been aggressively foisted on her cut off when she pulled away, but they came back in full force when he roughly grabbed the hollows of her cheeks and turned her face to the side.
A choke lodged in her throat at the pressure of emotions, strangling her in their dark intensity, just as slick fingers caressed her wounds.
A sweet smell came from what he was spreading on her skin, and she remembered it from when he’d healed her wrist.
Tears instantly welled in her eyes, and she knew he’d think it was because of her fear of being caught.
But he would be wrong.
It had nothing to do with how she felt, and everything to do with how he did.
His human hands were gentle as they held her head to the side, steady and calm, reflecting nothing of the pain he was in.
The sorrow, the grief, the anger. But stronger than that, what hammered into her being the hardest was the overwhelming guilt and shame that weighed down on her heart until she wanted to scratch it out of her own chest to escape the way it squeezed, contorted, and stung.
And it deepened when a sob broke past her lips.
Her gaze slid to the corners of her eyelids, and she regretted it when their eyes met. Even through the haze of tears, she was able to see him clearly.
The straightness of his strong nose, his firm, cupid’s bow mouth, and the jut of his broad chin – each had been perfectly sculpted into a handsome face.
Dark, thick brows didn’t pinch, but they did twitch as his lips tightened.
His ruby eyes were even more beautiful in this form, but the way his slitted pupils widened at her was so strange she couldn’t help looking away.
When had they stopped being thin and tight with anger?
She perceived no hate in their unwanted connection, not a shred of it. She thought if she ever experienced his innermost emotions, it’d be all she’d feel – spite towards her for simply existing.
No, somewhere in the swirl of his emotions, she thought she may have even felt... gratitude.
Surely she was mistaken.
When his gaze slipped to her claw wounds, and she felt them start to knit back together, Carwyn finally looked towards the stone wall. Her crying doubled.
I’ve seen his human face. Her chance for freedom was gone. He’d never let her go now. She’d be imprisoned forever. He’d have no blood debt to her; only his sister would. He should’ve left my wounds alone.
If he wanted to help, he’d done the opposite. Everything she was doing, had done, was now utterly pointless.
“Why?” she cried, clutching the furs tighter to her chest.
The tips of his fingers landed against her forehead. “Sleep,” he grated out.
All the energy in her drained away, and she went limp. Her eyes grew half-lidded, and he gently placed her on the bedding. His brows quirked, coming together, as if he was perplexed that she was still awake. Then she felt stronger magic piercing her.
But it was his emotions – too big, too strong, too inhuman in essence – that refused to let her fall asleep. Until he finally took his touch away and severed the connection.
Then she passed out.