CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The world returned in fragments of humid air and the overwhelming scent of crushed lavender. My throat felt as though it had been lined with desert sand, every swallow a scratchy friction that forced a pained groan from my lips.
I forced my lids open, ripped parchment and hand-drawn pictures of flora greeting me.
A soft scuffle of footsteps sounded to my left and then a hand gently patted my shoulder.
“Easy, Kaelia,” Leona whispered.
She slid an arm behind my neck, lifting me just enough to press a cool stone cup against my cracked lips. I drank with a desperation that made me lightheaded, the water blooming like life itself against my parched tongue.
When the cup was empty, I sank back into the pillows, my eyes roaming the shadowed rafters of the ceiling.
“Why is it so dark?” I managed to rasp.
Leona set the cup aside and smoothed the heavy linen sheet over my chest. “I dimmed the lanterns to prevent a further headache. You hit your head with quite a bit of force when you collapsed.”
I frowned, the motion tugging my forehead down painfully. I winced and brought my fingers up to my head, feeling a round bump and fractured skin.
I closed my eyes again, the memory of the white-haired woman and the silver knife flashing behind my lids with a clarity that made my heart stutter. I could still feel the phantom vibration of the voices screaming my name.
“Talon,” I breathed, my fingers clutching at the blanket. “Is he… is he safe?”
Leona’s hand found mine. “He is outside, and I suspect the only reason he is not in this bed with you is because I threatened to bar the door if he interfered with your rest.”
A small and shaky breath escaped me at the thought of him, a mixture of relief and a renewed, sharp guilt that made the ache in my head intensify.
“I am still extremely tired,” I whispered, wiggling down the narrow bed and tugging the blankets to my chin.
Leona gently tapped my cheek. “You get some more rest, child. When you wake, we will be here with a basket of herbs to nurse you back to health.”
I smiled and burrowed into the linen, closing my eyes and falling asleep to the gentle sound of the humming incubator.
* * *
Clouds churned in sickly shades of bruised violet and venomous green, the light fracturing like a festering wound in the heavens. I did not just see the havoc, I tasted it. The air reeked of iron and rot, a thick layer of smoke coating my tongue and making every breath a struggle.
I was standing in the marrow of a nightmare, my boots sinking into mud thickened with the copper warmth of fresh blood. The cries of war crashed into me from every side—a symphony of steel tearing through air and bodies colliding with sickening thuds.
At first, I thought it was a battle of men, but the diseased light revealed a far more terrifying truth.
Humans fought shoulder to shoulder with Veythar, their shadow-tinged eyes glowing with shared ferocity.
Against them stood women cloaked in midnight, their fingers curled as they plucked at the very air.
Magic lanced from their palms in searing strikes of white-hot power, fire and shadow twisting into a tempest that leveled everything in its path.
I turned where I stood, lost in the chaotic swirl of steel and sorcery.
None looked at me, none touched me, even as a blade passed through the space where my heart should be. I tried to run, but my legs were sluggish.
In the very center of the bloodied field, a figure stood unbroken amidst the carnage.
A woman with glowing white hair. Her body was stiff, unnaturally so, her eyes glazed as though she looked straight through the world, seeing something far beyond the battle raging at her feet.
Her skin was drained of color, her lips parted as if frozen mid-word.
When her head lifted, her gaze fixed on mine, and something inside me froze. Unlike every other figure on this battlefield, she looked as though she could see me. Her eyes danced with a sinister gleam so slight, I almost missed it.
“Come, Kaelia,” she said. Her voice was soft, yet it carried above the roar of battle, cutting through steel and shrieks as though the world itself had silenced to hear her. “Join me.”
I shook my head, my throat tight with a refusal I could not voice.
“You do not belong to the earthside. You must join me.”
As if she had screamed, not merely spoken, the chaos of war froze. Swords halted mid-swing, an arrow stilled in the air just inches from a man’s eye, fire froze in the palms of the witches.
Every being, human and Veythar and witch alike, turned as one. Their heads snapped toward me, eyes fastening to mine. The silence was deafening, unnatural, pressing against my ears until they ached.
Then, one voice rose, hollow and commanding.
“Go on, Kaelia. Join her.”
Another voice followed. And another. Until the words came in a chorus, hundreds of voices threading together in a chant that scraped raw against my skull.
“Join her. Join her. Join her.”
The chant shifted, darkened and warped.
“Traitor. Traitor.”
I covered my ears and blinked, and then, Talon was there.
He was on his knees before her, his massive frame heaving, his ink-black hair matted with gore.
The shadows that usually sang at his command were limp, graying at the edges as they bled into the mud.
The woman reached out, her fingers ghosting over his jaw with a tenderness that made my stomach turn.
In her other hand, she held a silver dagger, its blade etched with runes that pulsed with a foul, emerald light. With a slow grace, she drove the point into the hollow of his neck.
“No!” I screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the roar of the wind.
Talon did not cry out. He only looked at me, his navy eyes filling with a dark apology as the silver steel disappeared into his flesh. Dark, ink-like blood spilled over the woman’s ivory fingers, staining her green gown until it turned black.
“Come, Kaelia,” she said, her voice cutting through the shrieks of the dying. “Join me.”
“Join her, Kaelia. Join her.”
My knees buckled and I collapsed onto the blood-slick soil, my fingers inching out to clasp Talon’s limp hand.
A rumble shot through the earth, tipping me sideways and away from Talon. I reached out for him, but his body rolled away from me and into a gaping hole that opened up at the feet of the woman.
I shrieked as his body disappeared, my eyes widening as his form got lost in the vacuum.
She laughed hysterically, her hands lifting above her head before slamming down with a squeal.
The ground heaved beneath me, lungs of earth gasping in fury. Fissures split open, bleeding that same eerie green light, and the woman’s form began to flicker, her features warping and melting.
I gripped onto the ledge, a cry tearing from me at the feeling of no ground beneath my feet.
Forcing my head up, my gaze latched onto the woman. But she was no longer the woman with white hair.
Where she had stood, a stranger now remained. His hair was disheveled, falling in dark streaks across a face etched with exhaustion, and his garments were torn to ribbons.
“Kaelia. You must awaken. This is not your time.”
The world around us groaned, splitting wider. Figures began to blur and vanish, voices thinning to a hiss, but his voice remained steady, rooted in the collapsing scene.
“They are coming to Umbral,” he warned. “And they are after you.”
The battlefield fractured, crumbling into nothing. The earth swallowed itself whole, and I fell with it, gasping as the last of the dream tore me apart.