34. Willow
Chapter 34
Willow
I wake with a start in Fox’s bed, my hand instinctively reaching out, seeking him. The absence of his warm body beside me is a physical ache that settles deep in my chest before I even open my eyes.
Of course, we argued about which room to put him in when we returned to the keep. Styx wanted to draw a mustache on his face “to go with his ostentatious fashion.” Emrys suggested the vegetable garden to scare away the ravens. Baby Hunt cocked his leg and peed on Fox, which made Bodin lose his ever-loving mind. Varen left, probably because of the chaos. Legion just wanted them all to shut up. Ultimately, they made sense of it when I suggested he remain in the dining room where his hive would see him daily. We hoped that gazing upon his stony face and expression of heartbreak would keep his memory alive, unlike what happened with Styx.
I close my eyes, remembering the faint heartbeat. He’s still in there, still alive. The thought of him possibly aware but unable to move, to speak, to live is almost too much. Styx said his memory was hazy before he was imprisoned in stone, but does that mean Fox isn’t suffering?
I sit up, pulling my knees to my chest. The room still smells faintly of Fox—that mix of moss, woods, and musk that’s uniquely him. It’s both a comfort and a torment.
A wave of loneliness overcomes me. An ache grows deeper inside my chest, and I rub my sternum as if to dispel the feeling of loss. Wolves need to be with a pack, and in the absence of my family back in Elphyne, I need to be close to my mates.
I need the reassurance that I’m not alone.
I need to feel wanted.
Varen is my first thought. But he has no dream web, and I triggered his manic attack the last time I slept in his bed. I don’t want to cause trouble and discomfort.
Bodin is grumpy with me for running off without him and attempting to break into the temple alone. I get it. It was stupid. But love makes us do silly things. I’m not sorry.
Styx still doesn’t trust me. Emrys scowls at me constantly. And Legion, the one person in this group who should know what mates are to each other, avoids me. I refuse to touch you this way, he said. The more I think of those words, the more I feel wounded and need comfort.
My new friends have suffered enough because of my actions. I can’t lump my emotions onto them too.
So that leaves me with Fox. He’s a stone statue, but his heart beats steadily inside. Maybe curling up at his feet will let me fall into a dreamless sleep.
I gather Fox’s black embroidered blanket around my naked body and ease off his bed. It’s become my own. The dream web must work well enough because I’ve had no complaints about rogue dreamscapes infecting the hallways. I tiptoe through the connecting door to my small room. Having six domineering mates is both a blessing and a curse. I’m a glutton for tactile company, but I’m no fool. There will be times when I need my own space.
Now is not one of those times.
I run my finger along my collection of stolen items. Last night, one of Bodin’s hair beads joined the mix.
I collect a scarf I wore last week and head to the dining room at the end of the wing. Each step on the cold floor feels heavier than the last. But still, I press on. Because even a stone Fox is better than being completely alone.
When I enter the dining room, festive smells assault my nose—a potent mix of pine, cinnamon, and the lingering scent of mulled wine. A shadowy old-world Christmas tree stands by a window. My friends helped me decorate it. Cricket and Finch even added their decorated Yule log as a centerpiece on the empty dining table. It’s dark, the room bathed in the ethereal glow of faerie lantern lights that dance along the walls like captured starlight. It must be somewhere between dusk and dawn, that liminal time when the veil between worlds grows thin, but I’ve lost track of time. All I can think of now is how impossible it seems to get Fox back.
I pad over to him, my bare feet silent on the floor. Placing my hand on his cold, hard chest, I feel the faintest thrum of tingling magic beneath the surface, a cruel reminder of the life trapped within. We dressed him in pants and a shirt. I add my scarf around his neck, thinking that smelling me close might be nice for him.
When I look up at his beautiful face, my lips curve at the curly charcoal mustache Styx drew—such a brotherly thing to do. Despite being born of the same mother, I didn’t see the Six as siblings. They weren’t biologically made in her womb, and all appear different based on the traits of each slaver queen. But the more time I spend with them, the more their fractiousness and camaraderie reminds me of my behavior with my kin.
I consider wiping the mustache off, but it’s fun to imagine Fox discovering what’s on there when he reanimates.
A low hum from somewhere in the dark room instills a deep sense of unease. I guess the sound of the fey lines, the magical energy coursing through Avorlorna, is more potent now in winter’s heart. It moves the carriages and probably helps keep the watergates frozen.
I look into Fox’s opaque eyes, those heartbreaking eyes frozen in a moment of sacrifice, and I’m taken back to when he told me why he was turning himself to stone in my place. The memory washes over me, as vivid and painful as if it were happening all over again . . .
He slams his palm on Styx’s solid chest. “I ate Sylvanar, Willow. I ate his Shadow. I’m the fucking monster! I made it worse.”
I step away from Fox as the truth dawns on me. I shouldn’t be here. I should be far away from these people I care about. Fox is in this situation because of me. He said it himself—he tried to be something other than himself to prove he was no monster. Monster: that stupid word I slung in the heat of battle five years ago.
The further away I step, the more the sounds of that battle ring in my ears, adding to the pulsating sense of fear and regret already clinging to me. My bottom bangs into the dining table; my hands fly out to steady myself. The blanket falls from my shoulders, and cold air rushes in, tightening my bare nipples.
I close my eyes against the onslaught of more battle memories. I don’t want to be back there. I don’t want to remember all the horrible things I did, but there’s no escaping them.
The sounds of undead creatures clawing their way out of dirt scrapes in my mind. Immediately, I think about Max, Geraldine, Peggy, Bob . . . Colin. Where is Colin?
I hug the blanket. The room seems to spin. The faerie lights blur into streaks of cold fire. The scent of death and decay, a memory from that battle, fills my nostrils.
What if he’s dead? What if he’s like Bob? Someone killed him because he’s weak. Here I am complaining about pageants and lessons; people are still dying in the shadows. Just like they’re suffering outside the city gates.
Panic starts to climb; my heart races. The ringing of blades clashing in the distance becomes guttural growls of the undead biting into my side. My hand flies to that side of my face, where I feel an echo of the scars they left behind.
I almost feel the rough, rotting flesh against my skin, hear their teeth gnashing, and smell the putrid decay.
Even if I manage to reclaim my magic from Titania, I’m only good for killing and raising the dead, creating suffering.
The thought settles over me like a shroud, cold and suffocating. Memories of my time with Nero flood back, unbidden and unwelcome. The countless lives I took, the bodies I raised, all under his command. The room seems to darken, the shadows growing longer, reaching for me with grasping, accusing fingers.
“Run,” someone whispers to me. “Run now. Run far, far from these people before you make it worse.”
The whispers grow louder, harsher, seemingly closer. Dread builds, and my pulse gallops. I gather the blanket around me as if that can save me from my own mind.
“Run, run now.”
That’s when I realize the pulsing sense of fear, the hum, the whispers . . . they’re not coming from my mind—the very air around me ripples and shifts. A shadowy, spectral figure with a mirror-like surface appears. It’s vaguely humanoid but doesn’t seem to hold a shape. Its eyes are swirling vortexes of fear and regret. Tendrils of mist emanate from its body.
The temperature plummets. My breath comes out in visible puffs, and goosebumps race across my skin. The lanterns flicker and dim as if recoiling from the creature’s presence.
When one of the tendrils snakes towards me and touches my bare shoulder, Fox whispers, “Fucking monster! You made it worse!”
I’m having a nightmare.
I must still be in Fox’s bed. His dream web might be defective without him. But the cold is too real, the fear too palpable. I can smell the Terror’s presence—a mix of decay and ozone, tinged with the metallic scent of old blood. I can see it before me with crystal clarity.
I try to back away, but my legs won’t move. Once a comfort, the blanket now feels like it’s suffocating. The Terror looms closer, its form shifting and writhing, a kaleidoscope of my worst fears.
“This is real,” it whispers, its voice a meld of all the people I’ve failed—Rory, Bob, my mother, father. “You can’t run from what you are.”
I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. The Terror’s tendrils reach for me again, promising to drag me into a void of endless regret and fear. Images flash before my eyes—the faces of those I killed under Nero’s command, their eyes accusing, their mouths twisted in silent screams. The secret I’ve kept from Geraldine and Max, the horrors I inflicted, threaten to overwhelm me.
But then, oddly, its voice becomes female. She mocks, she taunts, she’s . . . not looking at me anymore but at Bodin, standing only a few feet away in his Sluagh form, staring in horror at his bloody, taloned hands. His wings are out. His eyes are wholly black.
“Bodin?” I gasp.
He looks up, wide eyes clashing with mine. Shame contorts his face. He tries to hide his hands behind his back, beneath the mantle of his tattered wings. He walks toward me, but the Terror senses him, too. Its tendrils unfurl and head towards him. It’s trying to suck him into my dream.
This is bad.
Very bad. If he gets lost in here, he might never come out.
“Bodin, no! Don’t come any closer!” I shout. “I’m dreaming. This is a nightmare. You’re in my dreamscape again.”
He pauses. Panic washes over his features. I’ve never seen his eyes filled with fear like this before. He glances between the Terror and me.
“It’s an Echo Wraith,” he says. “Don’t listen to it. Wake up. Wake up now.”
I try to shake myself awake, to pinch myself. I try everything but can still feel the cold press of the floor beneath me. I still smell the pine and mulled wine. This feels so real, so visceral.
“It’s not working,” I say, my voice trembling. Whispers of regret, of my past, the blood, the undead clawing at my skin—I feel like they’re right here with me. I can’t see them but hear them and smell them.
“Bodin, you need to go,” I plead.
“That’s right,” the wraith whispers. “Make him run. Make him run away from you where he’s safer.”
“Where are you sleeping?” Bodin shouts at me, his voice strangely sounding distant and down the hall. It’s almost like he’s not here.
“I . . . I guess I’m in Fox’s bed. As usual.”
Wait, how can Bodin’s Sluagh side be out? The whispers laugh at him. That cold dread on his face increases. We both realize our mistake at the same time: He’s not entering my dreamscape—I must be entering his. Or . . .
“Our dreamscapes have clashed!” I gasp.
“Impossible,” he grunts, shrewd eyes darting about, looking for answers.
I know I’m right. I feel it in my bones, in the tingling of magic crawling along my skin. I never noticed it before, but it’s there. And it’s different. Darker. Thicker. More pungent and lethal.
“Where did you fall asleep?” I ask Bodin. “In your bed or somewhere without a dream web?”
He doesn’t answer, but the horror dawning in his eyes tells me all I need to know. He’s not in his bed.
“Bodin,” I say, barely above a whisper, “Wake up.”
Come for me. Wake me up, too.
We lock eyes, and then he disappears, leaving me alone with the nightmare, its tendrils, its misty wisps locking around my wrists and stinging like regret.
The room seems to stretch and distort, and the walls melt like wax. The nightmare’s grip is ice-cold, seeping into my bones. The scent of fear—my own and remnants of Bodin’s—mingles with the pine and wine, creating a nauseating cocktail.
“You see?” the Echo Wraith hisses, its voice a chorus of every doubt I’ve had. “ Even in dreams, you bring nothing but danger. You don’t belong anywhere—not in the waking world. Not in nightmares.”
I struggle against its hold, but the more I fight, the tighter it grips. The whispers grow louder, a roar of regrets and fears drowning out my thoughts.
“They’re all going to leave you.”
The wraith’s form shifts, becoming a mirror image of myself—but this version of me is covered in blood, eyes wild with the same feral hunger I felt when Nero commanded me to kill. It grins, revealing sharp teeth. “This is who you really are,” it taunts. “A killer. A monster. Just like Nero made you.”
“Bodin!” I scream, hoping against hope that he can still hear me. “Hurry!”