Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
The Acheron River flowed through the crystalline cave, some of its waters diverted to the silver scrying pool beside which the King knelt, his leather-clad knees pressing into sand as black as the water before him.
On the scrying pool’s surface, ripples spread outward like silver spider webs, each one carrying whispers of prophecy and possibility.
How many lifetimes had he watched, and over how many millennia? How many false hopes had he followed, only to discover that the woman he’d found was merely a shadow of the one he sought—the woman who was his destined mate?
But this time was different. This time, he was certain.
The pool showed him a girl with copper hair and sea-green eyes, her long legs moving her across the stately campus with the bearing of a queen.
She paused, her head tilting as if sensing something.
“You feel it too,” he whispered, his voice echoing in this cave that formed one entrance of the massive castle to which he was bound.
But that would change. For millennia, he’d been held captive—magically tied to his castle and its gardens.
But now she had been found. And this time, he was certain that she was truly the one.
And soon—so deliciously soon—she would fulfill her destiny and not only free him, but all five realms as well.
“It is all around you, my love,” he whispered. “This pull between us. Surely you can feel it too. Surely you are longing to be mine.”
The idea delighted him. Of course, his Bride knew nothing of the secrets that shadowed her. Nothing of how thoroughly her destiny had been woven into the fabric of the five realms eons before her birth. Nothing of all the false Brides that had come before.
And nothing of why she still drew breath when so many others did not.
But Adric knew. More than once he had watched his brother’s blade fly safely past her. Had watched the Hunter scoop her free of danger and onto the back of his dragon.
Interesting.
For millennia, his brother had been ruthless. Efficient. Cold as the void between stars. The Hunter had never hesitated, never faltered. Every Bride before this one had fallen to his blade.
But not Cora Lyte.
Adric smiled, slow and satisfied. His brother had finally found something he couldn’t bear to destroy. A weakness. A crack in that impenetrable armor.
And where there was a crack, there was a way in.
Cora Lyte.
She was the one. She had to be. And soon, she would finally know him. Soon, she would understand everything.
Finally, she would become that which she was always meant to be. His Bride.
A shadow fell across the scrying pool, his only window to the world beyond this damnable prison of a castle.
He looked up as Kali moved forward. She stood at attention beside him, her obsidian armor gleaming like liquid starlight in the fading light.
“Is it her?” Kali asked, her violet eyes locked on his.
“It is.” He rose to his feet in a single fluid motion, his coat of shadows settling around him like wings. “Soon, it will happen. She will be mine, and the first half of the prophecy will be fulfilled. I will finally be unbound.”
Something dark and predatory flickered across her otherwise impassive face, then was gone in the same instant. “And if the Hunter interferes again?”
He brushed sand from his knees. “He won’t. He let this one live.”
Kali’s expression darkened, and her lips parted as if to speak, but she said nothing.
With a swift motion, he drew his sword, then swept it through the water, dissolving his Bride’s image but not his resolve.
He was the king of the Nightmare Realm, destined for greatness.
For power. And yet, for millennia, he had been trapped, at first only able to watch from afar as the other four realms muddled along, and the foolish, limited humans forgot the true power of dreams.
All because one man—one persistent Hunter—kept finding his prophesied queen before Adric could claim her. Killing her rather than allowing destiny to be fulfilled.
It was, quite frankly, infuriating.
But this one still lived. And that told him everything he needed to know.
“Tonight, it begins,” he said, more to himself than to Kali. “Tonight, her dreams will open the door that has been closed to me for far too long.”
Kali inclined her head, the silver ties that bound her midnight-black hair glinting in the dim light. “All is ready, my king.”
“Good.” He stood, then took one last look into the scrying pool, the water now black and quiet. But it had told him enough. He knew her now. Soon, she would know him too.
In one smooth motion, he turned his back to the pool, the shadows of his long coat billowing as he strode toward the cave’s mouth. “Send the mares.”