Chapter 21 #2
My mouth drops open, and I slowly turn to survey the rest of the hills around us. Blue overpowering the dark. More of them crowd around me, and I sweep my gaze over them at my feet. “It’s…it’s…”
“Beautiful,” he whispers.
Smiling at the roses, I float my attention up to him to find him not staring at the landscape around us—but at me.
Nowhere else but me.
My pulse skitters. That soft look to his expression as he grins melts my anxiety away. Flicking his head over his shoulder, he gestures out beside him. “Do you like it, Lyra?”
Biting into my smile, I nod. “Indeed. I’d venture to say I love it.”
He bends, crouching down to cup a flower. Plucking it, he offers it up to me. I take the steps between us and duck my head with a smile as I take it from him.
“Thank you.” I look down at the petals where the glow slowly fades from its core. As I nudge the petals around to see where the light had been coming from, I say, “Not only have I never seen a wild blue rose, but I’ve also never seen a glowing flower.”
“Now you understand why I find the night so lovely.”
I flick a look up at him. We’re toe-to-toe now. His eyes are intense; so deep it’s like I’ve fallen into a well. Despite the endless hills of blue flowers and stretch of starry sky around us, I can’t look away.
Every nerve and muscle in my body leans toward him, like a tide being pulled into the ocean. Relentless and overpowering, the closer we get.
A strong breeze kicks up behind me—strong enough my skirts flap in the wind toward him, like the very earth has conspired to push me closer. I take a small step forward to steady myself before I fall into him entirely, my hands bracing against his chest as I fight to regain my balance.
He sucks in a breath near the top of my head, and the wind dies in an instant. As I step back from him, I brush down my hair that’s wildly mussed. Realizing that at some point I’ve dropped the rose.
So as not to look at him for fear of embarrassing myself further, I drop into a crouch to retrieve the rose on his boot. “Sorry about that.”
He drops down in front of me as I grab the rose, gently grabbing my chin with his bare fingers to tilt my head up to finally look at him. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Lyra Goldbrook.”
My lips part as his eyes sink from my gaze down to my mouth, his thumb still right beneath my lower lip. Fist still beneath my chin.
My heart hammers inside my chest, begging for him to lean in a little closer. To warm my lips with his own. I’ve kissed before—it wouldn’t be the first time. And yet the shiver of anticipation that courses through me is like reliving a first experience all over.
He drops his hand from my chin.
My heart drops along with it. Perhaps it was foolish to think he might do something like kiss me. Maybe he was only being courteous—friendly?
Clearing his throat, he waves a hand, and within a two-foot radius, all the roses disappear. He plops back to sit down. “Would you care to sit with me?”
Nodding, I slowly fall forward onto my knees, sitting back on my heels while I twirl the blue rose in my fingers.
Working to slow my heart rate as I distract myself, I slide my fingers up and down the rose’s stem.
Then slow. Tilting it to wash it in moonlight, I notice not a single thorn protrudes from it.
Odd.
“This…this is a dream? Isn’t it?” I ask, looking up from the rose and almost laughing now that I see it. Now that it’s all starting to make sense.
He cocks his head to the side as he leans back onto his palms resting on the ground. “Why would you say that?”
“Because none of this makes sense.” My statement slowly begins to twist into questions.
Squinting, I peer over at the hills behind each of us.
Then back to the rose in my hand. “How did we get through the wall? How did those roses appear? And…and how did they disappear? Why…” Swinging my attention left and right.
Everywhere but him, as I become well aware of the humming again.
“Why…the roses don’t have thorns? Why do they glow? And they’re blue—”
“The Gods’ flower, remember?”
“This isn’t real,” I laugh as I stand. All the confusion leaves me in an instant, now knowing it’s a dream. I turn my back to him to look up at the stars and test the constellations against my memory. I lift a finger and point up at the heavens, looking for a telltale sign. “You see, if—”
My breath leaves me on a simple breeze, brushing all of my hair off my neck and shoulders into the air.
A cloud of warmth brushing against the back of my neck trails goosebumps across every inch of my skin.
I drop my hand. Slowly, I turn my head toward my shoulder, toward the sensation that I realize isn’t a simple burst of warmth on my neck.
It’s him. Drawing in a breath against me, his lips teasing my skin near the back of my ear. I turn to face him, ready to confront the building tension we’ve drawn tight between us.
All the blood in my body drains to my toes.
His pupils are slitted. Draconic. My blood turns cold in an instant, matching that iciness that’s hung in the air throughout the night. I fumble backwards, tripping over my skirts, and I catch myself back on my palms.
“This isn’t real,” I whisper, shaking my head as he drops to all fours and I try to crawl backward.
His head rolls to the side, body shifting and contorting into something bestial. His skin cracks and splits to reveal scales, his limbs elongate. Twisted dark horns begin to grow out from his skull.
I scream.
Then kick out at his face before I flip onto my stomach and crawl as quickly as I can. Through the glowing blue roses until I’ve found my feet, I grab my skirts and run.
Pain explodes within my skull like a crack of lightning, sending me straight to my knees.
“You cannot run from me,” a voice as deep as the ocean’s trenches, rough as the edge of a knife calls out.
Animal.
Monster.
I grip my head like I can contain the agony ripping through me, forcing me to curl in on myself. Despite trying to convince myself to keep moving, I can’t even think straight around the pain. I collapse face first into the grass.
Its presence draws near. The weight of it rises behind me like a cresting wave.
In my panic, I flip onto my back. My skull is splitting with pain as if the creature has already struck me. “This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real,” I mutter to myself over and over.
Looming up over the hill is a shadow. Is darkness itself, with two white-slitted eyes centered on me. Within a blink the creature is climbing on top of me as I scream.
“You cannot run from me,” the voice repeats, now inside my head, and it snaps forward, jaws closing around the front of my throat—
I shove up off my back, my blurry vision settling until I recognize what’s around me.
A set of double doors is across from me.
Marbled white floors. Golden arched ceilings painted with florals and cherub dragons.
I glance to my right to find the familiar set of massive windows peering out into the star-twinkling sky. The moon is nowhere in sight.
I’m back in my room. Lying on the floor in the exact same spot I woke up in the first day here. Patting myself in a panic, I find myself free of blood. Still in my blue gown from the ball.
I snap my attention to the door. To the exact tile where I had gotten Cyrus’ letter. Crawling on my hands and knees, I scramble to get a closer look. But it’s not there. And it isn’t in the drawer where I thought I had placed it before I left with him to the gardens.
I swipe the sweat off my forehead. It was truly a…dream? Perhaps? My scream had been so raw and visceral. Yet, my throat doesn’t ache the way it should if it came from me.
I take a seat on the edge of my bed, staring at the door.
Marcella never came.