Chapter 15
Painful, all-consuming memories that had a scream ripping from his throat flashed through his mind.
Dominic squeezed his eyes shut and crumpled to the floor, the chill of stone biting his knees.
He had believed the Whisperer could see someone’s past and future, not force the victim to see it too.
Yet Dominic was staring through the eyes of his eleven-year-old self, watching helplessly as his drunken father beat his older sister.
Over and over and over again until she was a bruised, lifeless heap on the floor, and Dominic couldn’t scream any longer.
Blood. So much blood pooled beneath her broken body, staining the wooden floors, his hands. He lunged for her—
Saige’s body crumpled to ash in his hands, the old dilapidated cottage around him morphing into Andreilia’s shore.
Valen lay in the sand, black blood pooling beneath him.
“Traitor!” Damon screamed in Dominic’s face, so loud and full of anguish that it rattled his bones.
“You did this! We could have saved him!” Damon spat, pulling his cutlass from its scabbard.
It was all he could do while the light faded from Valen’s eyes.
When Dominic stepped closer, wishing to hold Valen in his dying breath, Damon lashed out with his weapon.
Blood dribbled down the shallow slice on Dominic’s cheek.
Damon screamed that word at him again and again and again. Traitor. Traitor. Traitor.
Squeezing his eyes closed against the tears pooling in them, Dominic pressed his hands to his ears, trying to block out Damon’s tortured screams, the sound of his loved ones’ breaths ceasing, the Whisperer’s taunting words.
Your fault. Your fault. Your fault.
Damon and Valen faded away, and Dominic finally thought the torment was over. He stood in the middle of a grassy plain illuminated by the full moon that hung in the night sky above. Stars twinkled brightly overhead, illuminating a figure in the distance.
A beautiful girl stood surrounded by living shadows that strayed from her as if she were a beacon that would extinguish them.
As if she were a flame that would drive away the dark.
He suddenly recognized the long, silky brown hair cascading down the girl’s back in a braid.
And when she turned, he met her gaze. Those eyes.
How could he ever forget those piercing blue eyes that shimmered like dancing firelight?
He hadn’t. Not entirely. Dominic knew there was something about Adara when he first met her.
Always felt a calm sense of familiarity around her.
Because this was him staring at her, albeit younger. This was him knowing her in his past.
He took a step toward her. “A—” Her warning cut him off.
“Run!” she yelled. “Save yourself!” The shadows swallowed her, swallowed everything.
When the light returned, Dominic faced her again.
Something was different this time—wrong.
She stood before him, shoulders hunched, an invisible burden weighing her down.
Usually, she carried herself with such arrogant swagger, eyes full of fierce confidence.
None of that was there now. Her hands trembled at her sides.
She balled them into fists to hide it. Even if he hadn’t seen her shaking hands, he’d have known something was wrong by looking at her.
Clothes that usually hugged her lean, muscular figure hung limply on her, as if she’d fallen ill and had been starved for months.
Sunken cheeks shadowed her face and dark circles stained the skin beneath her eyes.
If her body wasn’t any indicator that something was off, one look into her eyes was.
The fiery blue gaze that usually burned so feral, so inhuman, had faded to a dull, lifeless blue.
The thing that worried him most was how strongly he saw one single emotion flickering in her eyes.
An emotion he rarely saw, as she always masked it with lethal tranquility.
She did not have the strength to hide that emotion now.
Pure, undiluted terror.
He drew closer, realizing this was an event in the future, for he had never seen Adara like this. He needed to ask her what was wrong, but the words stuck in his throat.
“Dominic,” she practically sobbed, taking a step closer. She collapsed into his arms. He caught her against his chest. “Dom, I don’t want to—”
White light flooded his vision, and he felt as if he was plunging through space. Pain shot through his entire body, but it was gone in an instant. Like he hit the ground hard, but then remembered he’d never been falling.
Eyes rapidly blinking to adjust to the dim lighting, Dominic remembered where he was. In the Whisperer’s cave . . . and he had just looked into its eyes. It had learned his name from the vision of Adara. And now all it took was one word for this monster to put him in the grave.
“The knife!” someone shouted over the ringing in his ears. The voice sounded distant, unreal. He blinked again, hands braced on the rock beneath him as he tried to stand and reorient himself, but fell over once more.
“The knife, dammit!” The voice grew louder this time, the hum of blood rushing in his ears growing quieter as he focused on his surroundings. “TOSS ME THE KNIFE!” Adara yelled, panicked.
He blinked once, glanced at the sharp dagger resting in his palm, then at the Whisperer with its mouth open, teeth gleaming, poised to make the kill.
Dominic tossed the knife in Adara’s direction as the Whisperer stalked closer to him, that one soulless, white eye glaring into his own.
He thought he saw death in that milky pit on its face, laced in those vicious fangs as it bared its teeth.
In one swift motion, Adara ripped off her blindfold and caught the dagger by the hilt.
The Whisperer’s mouth opened, a death knell for all to hear despite how softly the ancient creature spoke. Dominic didn’t even have time to curse Adara for tricking him, for leading him right to his death. Didn’t have time to think of how painful death would be or the afterlife.
“Domin—” its whispered word was cut off. Silver gleamed between its teeth in the dancing candlelight, a blade protruding from the Whisperer’s open mouth.
Adara twisted the knife through the back of its throat, jabbing the weapon deeper until it was buried in the Whisperer’s neck up to the hilt, blade sawing at its tongue and teeth.
Dominic’s name died on the Whisperer’s tongue. Unspoken.
Alive. He was alive. Dominic sighed in relief, breaths coming out ragged and shallow. Adara had saved him. She actually saved him.
The Whisperer let out a gurgling noise. Black blood bubbled from its lips as it swiped a claw at Adara. Leaving the knife protruding from its throat, she dove under the Whisperer’s outstretched arm, dodging those long claws, and rolled until she reached her sword.
Dominic allowed himself one second to take a deep breath, to right himself as he stood, forgetting about the images of the past and future, about the pain shooting through his body.
Momentarily forgetting about her injured arm, Adara tried to heft her sword, letting out a moan of pain.
At the sound of her distress, the Whisperer whirled toward her and charged.
Adara stared, eyes wide, then heaved her sword up with her left hand.
She struggled for only a moment, as if used to wielding weapons in both hands.
Adara raised her sword, but Dominic was in front of her a moment later.
The white of bone gleamed inside the Whisperer’s ashen skin and Dominic realized the wound she’d given it earlier hadn’t yet healed.
Blood crusted around the wide gash across its abdomen.
Without balking, he shoved his hand into its flesh, ignoring the revolting wetness of its innards around his skin, and ripped out its exposed rib.
The creature let out a strangled cry—barely audible with the dagger still lodged in its throat—and staggered back. It only made it a few steps before Dominic stabbed the broken, jagged end of its own rib deep into its chest, through muscle and bone, right where its heart—if it even had one—was.
Falling to the ground, the Whisperer writhed in pain.
Its claws scraped against the stone, emitting a sound that pierced Dominic’s ears to the point of ringing as it gave one last futile effort to reach them.
That one pearly eye darted back and forth between Dominic and Adara’s faces.
It had no pupil, but he could tell it was watching, searching their minds for their names.
Blood gurgled from its mouth as if it had found its answer and was trying to kill them.
Dominic could do nothing but stare at its dying figure, wondering what the future it showed him meant.
Blinking through a dizzying haze, Dominic was suddenly aware of how much of the blood coating the ground was his.
Blood leaked from the gash on his abdomen.
His clothes stuck to his body. Stinging sweat dripped down his forehead into a small cut.
All he felt was searing pain—in his body and his mind.
“Let’s finish this, shall we?” Adara said.
She brushed past him, still cradling her bleeding arm.
Approaching the Whisperer, she hefted her sword above her, and brought it down upon the Whisperer’s neck in one mighty swing.
Blood sprayed. Its head rolled to the side, all light and movement from that eerie white eye vanishing as its body stilled.
Squatting down beside the decapitated head, Adara took out a thin knife from her boot.
Angling the blade against its forehead—one of the few places of its mangled body they hadn’t managed to maim—Adara carved into its gray skin.
When she finished writing, she sheathed the knife and tossed the head to him.
Reluctantly, he caught it, grunting in pain at the movement. Its blood poured across his hands, an all too familiar feeling.