Chapter One Within
Chapter One
Within
I had been here before.
A mountain stream slashed down the cliff face and carved out a deep pool in a broad clearing. Spears of moonlight sliced the misty spray into silver prisms. Translucent shallows deepened to midnight near the center of the pond. Glittering flowers spangled sloping banks.
A tall man undressed slowly at the water’s edge.
His hair was the lustrous, gleaming black of a feather; his powerful body was carved from hard muscle and sinew.
And oh, his face—sculpted from moonlight and shadow, with plush lips parted faintly in amusement.
Silver eyes simmered with desire beneath dark winging brows.
He plunged into the pool. The water swallowed him without a splash as he dived—deep enough for his form to be a star of white in the dark.
I inhaled, filling my lungs with humid summer air.
And even as I stood transfixed on the bluebell-strewn knoll…
I, too, dived into the pool. My hands—clasped as if in prayer—split the dark water.
My body knifed down, the cold pond a shock against my sweat-sticky skin.
I clawed at the water, pulling myself deeper.
You cannot hide here.
The voice was the whisper of silver ripples lapping rush-lined banks; the susurrus of eager trees bending heavy heads; the sudden pinch of a molten ring wrapped too tightly around my finger; the blinding scream of a collar latched around my throat—
Let me in.
I knew by now not to grab for it. The collar’s faint sizzle at my throat was nothing more than sense memory. I could tug until my fingernails shredded. Tear with all my strength. The metal would not give way. Because it was not really there.
Instead, I dived deeper. The man arose in counterpoint, and I watched him as he passed. His sharp jaw was tilted toward the light; his silver eyes were open, fixed on the shadow of a girl standing on the bank.
Me.
Not me. Not anymore.
Part of me longed to turn—to buoy to the surface alongside Irian and let this moment play out the way it was supposed to.
To latch my legs around his waist and tangle my fingertips in his damp black hair and press my yearning lips to his.
But the rest of me knew—this moment was long gone.
It was a dream, a memory. And if I lingered here—if I stayed—then she might catch me.
Let me in.
I swam deeper. My breath bulged in my lungs, yearning for escape. The moonlight bled away, a last gasp fading into nothing. If this had been real, I would have long ago reached the bottom of the pool.
It was not real.
I thrust myself deeper still, my senses furling away from me like petals from a dying flower. My sight, gone. My breath, stolen. My skin, chilled. I did not know which way was up, down. Whether this was still water, or something colder. Darker. Emptier.
I only knew I had to keep moving.
You cannot hide here.
As if summoned by the words, light appeared—a warm glow green as ivy and gentle as jasmine.
Surprise forced my gaze to my chest, where a river stone suddenly hung above my breastbone, pulsing a deep blue-green in the endless dark.
A slender sapling of hope grew inside me.
I grabbed for the stone, and it hummed between my fingers.
Vines clambered up my wrists with tiny sharp thorns.
A forest grew before me. Diamond-barked trunks arched tangled limbs. Branches exploded with serrated leaves scaled green as lizards’ bellies. Ferns embroidered lace through teeming underbrush. Vibrant flowers trembled, iridescent as butterflies’ wings.
A familiar figure stood amid dappled shafts of moonlight. They wore a crown of silver antlers lofting toward a star-strewn sky. Their muscular limbs were slicked over with russet fur. They had a face like the forest path.
You are mine, they intoned, slow as the seasons and patient as the dusk. Long fingers tipped with claws beckoned me, and I followed without thought. Without fear. Even as the figure turned, disappearing into the darkest part of the wood, I heedlessly ran after them.
Let me in!
The soundless scream chased me, rattling the boughs of the trees until their glass leaves shattered on the path.
My bare feet crunched through the litter, pain lancing my calves as blood fletched my steps.
Still I ran—as skeleton birds pecked at my eyes and metal trees unfurled into starbursts of violence and my silver crown slipped down over one eye.
I jerked it away from my head, and some of my white-blond hair came away with it, silvery strands twining my fingers like wire.
“No,” I moaned as my steps slowed. I threw the silver tiara to the ground, but that was no better—gray-fleshed arms punched from the dirt, clawing toward the shining metal with broken fingernails and palms crusted with grave dirt.
You cannot hide here.
I forced myself forward, even as the forest charred to dust at my passing. The ring around my finger burned molten. The scent of scorched metal and bog tar chased me. I swallowed, the sickly sweetness of apple nectar coating my tongue until my teeth began to rot in my mouth.
Still, I ran. Because I was not trying to hide.
I was trying to escape.