Chapter 15
A roaring thunderstorm jolted her awake. Nothing else had ever ripped her from sleep in a panic quite like it. The rest of camp, consistently crackling with burning-out flames and heavy steps of armed sentries, slumbered in the horrific howl of the storm.
Tonight, a shuddering chill hung low in the night air.
Alora pivoted her eyes around her tent. There. In the corner where her window sat. She almost blinked, for the thought dawned on her it might be a dream.
A figure stood. Only it wasn’t standing but hovering. Swirling in darkness.
It was darkness.
With a quick rotation of her wrist, Alora ignited her palm to illuminate every surface. Starlight always calmed the night, but this … not this, not tonight.
That hovering form remained a whorling mass that even starfire couldn’t pierce.
And she found herself wondering, What does it want? This thing. This familiar form of night could only come from one being. But he wasn’t there; he wasn’t commanding them.
Tendrils ominously coiled from the mass, calling to her.
Yet she wasn’t afraid. She knew this darkness. Had never run from it before.
She wouldn’t now.
Smokeshadows steadily descended until they braided across the rugs. Inching until they found her, enthralled with uneasy anticipation atop her thin emerald sheets. Brushing against her like velvet while it climbed her bare legs, her blue nightgown, and at last rested in her palm.
Like a calloused hand, the darkness pulled. And she didn’t question how something that could be parted like air felt solid. Before she convinced herself otherwise, she followed its ask. Followed it until the wisps faded into mist across her window that, to this point, she hadn’t been ready to ask anything of.
Alora focused on the onyx wood. The carved swirls of dancing smoke and black, crashing sea-like waves, felt cold on her fingertips where she traced.
And then they were there again. The darkness. His Smokeshadows. She often wondered if they were a piece of him. Carved out from whatever painful past he still carried.
Whorling around the glass, around her outstretched hand that gently traced the curves of the blackened wooden frame. Enticing her to approach. Enticing her to call them to reveal what they unsettlingly wished her to see. Freezing to the touch, her fiery skin still ached for the cold of it like it was a missing puzzle piece.
Something didn’t feel right.
An urgency in the shadows raised her chin higher as she peered into the glass, glimpsing the firesite beyond cast in amethyst moonlight. Frost cracked across the glass with the swirl of a Smokeshadow, then another swirl.
Alora stared into the reflection, a mix of the firesite and her eyes peered back as she said, “Show me.”
Deep abyss formed in the glass like ink polluting water. An endless pit of empty black horror.
Then. Pain—someone was screaming.
Alora pressed her hands to the glass. How was it possible she felt it? Felt the agony in her body from the infernal screams.
It was the dream. Yet she was sucked into it with eyes wide open.
Only this time, the voice was no mystery. She knew that voice.
The voice that comforted her nightmares.
Garrik.
Garrik was screaming.
The walls of darkness began opening, offering her the source. His bloodied hand flew through the unending darkness, reaching for her. Then she saw him, laying in a pool of his blood. Hands bloody, desperately pressed against gushing deep wounds across his abdomen.
A darkened figure prowled in a corner of the darkness. Its eyes serpent-like. Cold.
Alora’s fingertips glowed with white-hot intensity, baring her teeth with a snarl.
It was her. The female that haunted him .
The darkness retreated as Alora pressed mercilessly into the glass; the edges groaned inside the frame, threatening to crack.
Kill. She wanted to kill that female—that snake. But how could she kill a monster of dreams and nightmares?—
Garrik. Her stomach hollowed out.
The Smokeshadows. There was a reason they were here and he wasn’t. Was he dreaming? Trapped in a horrific nightmare with no way of escape?
Alora tore herself from the window. Without any reasonable sense and barefoot, she hurled herself for the tent door and stepped into the firesite. But it wasn’t there. No dying amber glow of embers, nor her friends’ tents.
No. She wasn’t in camp anymore.
Alora’s bare feet gripped against cold bloodstained graystone. She stared down a dimly lit hallway lined by flaming torches and those same bloodcurdling screams. They surrounded her like water, making it impossible to determine from which door they came.
Bile burned her throat. Her bones trembled.
Garrik. Garrik. Garrik. She had to find him?—
A throat-ripping scream cried out. Surely, he was being ripped apart by the viciousness of it.
This time, she noticed the quick bevel in a blackwood door. Fire coursed through her veins, and with the speed of a starburst, Alora raced to it, creaking hinges as the door pushed open.
The view turned her scorching veins to ice.
Broken and mangled. Mutilated bloody corpses in scaled armor were scattered around the room. But her eyes only focused on the bloodstained white sheets of a four-post bed dripping with cold iron chains.
Her body refused to move. Refused to breathe.
Garrik lay bleeding and tightly bound, unclothed, on the bed. The skin on his raw wrists and ankles peeled beneath each iron shackle attached to the steel bedposts. His powerful body spasmed, horrendously ripped apart from thighs to chest. Blood rained from the sheets into a pool beneath the bed. The amount alone proved it had been spilling for some time.
Ombré black fingernails dug deep into his abdomen, producing an excruciating flow.
From her.
The serpent with long obsidian hair. The female with Bloodlusted abyss for eyes. Fully bare, she straddled his waist. Moving against him, wickedly laughing with each pain-ridden scream caused by her piercing nails.
His scars. He’d mentioned in the barn what had happened to him. But this …
Alora’s heart shattered into fury-filled pieces. Even if a nightmare, this embodied a vicious memory. Driven by unconquerable rage, she threw her hands in front of her, aiming for the female.
The female only snickered, hints of hissing merged within it.
Her starfire—it wasn’t there. That seething pulse consistently burning through her veins and flesh … was gone.
Garrik shuddered a breath as his tortured, traitorous body uncontrollably bowed against her. Drawing his bonds taut, indignant shame overcame the silver of his eyes.
“Look around you. You’ve failed them. Failed them all,” the female hissed.
Smokeshadows desperately struggled to drag the female from Garrik’s lap, but they failed to reach them as if an invisible wall rendered them impenetrable.
“Look at them. See what you’ve done.”
Burning flames in her eyes, Alora shifted her gaze around the room in desperation. Whatever force pinned her feet to the floor only allowed her arms and head to move. It was all she could do. Utterly helpless. Useless against the invisible bonds.
And she saw them. All of them.
Black-armored Dragons, some faces she recognized. Calla. Draven…
Thalon.
Alora shuddered a terrible breath.
Their Guardian, drowned in his blood at the foot of an onyx-stoned fireplace. His dark locks and Earned were ripped from his scalp and hung from the mantel like a prized trophy. Those once glowing golden eyes were frozen open, lifeless.
Aiden was slumped over a blackwood cushioned chair beside the bed. His arms hung over the armrests, dripping blood from each finger.
Then she smelled it. Nothing in the realm carried quite a memorable stench.
A charred body with long, bright red hair, smoldered on the balcony. Jade.
Round-rimmed glasses were smashed beside her, and Alora knew without seeing his face it was Eldacar’s hand stretching through the open doorway.
“You failed them, pet ,” the female taunted. “Failed them all.” Her sharp fingernail snaked down his chest.
Tears burning her eyes, Alora turned to the bed. Prepared to break through whatever Firekeeper-filled-hell this was and suck the pathetic life from the serpent. But echoes of her own past stopped her bones cold.
To the right. Cruel hands, ebony hair, and betrayal behind mahogany eyes—she saw him. Saw herself. A glimpse of who she once was. Sunken pale cheeks, dark circles under sapphire eyes, and a gaunt, weak body under a deceivingly beautiful emerald and gold gown.
Alora’s knees didn’t quake.
No. She stood fearlessly resolute, undaunted as Kaine restrained a dream-likeness of her against a long black table. He choked the air from her lungs, fist slamming into her bruising face. With one final, fatal gasp, Alora watched her lips turn an unnatural shade of blue. Watched as her hands violently scratched and mauled Kaine’s flesh.
The monster inside Garrik thrashed with a murderous outcry against the shackles, peeling his raw bleeding flesh even more. “ Get your fucking hands off her !” That rasping voice raged in an intensity known to level cities.
Wrathful.
Then she heard the snap. Saw the unnatural bend of her neck, the way her head slumped.
And heard everything Garrik had left break.
“ Alora !” Garrik released a desolate, ear-piercing scream, more devastating than anything she’d ever heard. “ No !”
Instantly, the serpent’s grip crushed his airway as they watched Alora’s lifeless body plummet to the hardwood floor.
“You failed her.” Dagger-nailed hands squeezed Garrik’s throat as he fought to keep his eyes on Alora’s body.
Garrik twisted, hopelessly reaching as far as his bonds allowed. Reaching for her, dead on the floor, before his face relaxed. Face pale and lips blue, the life in his eyes dissolved, and his hair fell against the bloodstained pillow.
Darkness swallowed her. Swallowed everyone in that horrible room until she stood—shaking—barefoot on rain- drenched dirt. Her eyes rapidly blinked, focusing on the structure directly in front of her.
Garrik’s tent. She was at his canvas door, illuminated by irate strikes of lightning.
It was a dream.
No —dreams are peaceful. That was Firekeeper-filled- hell disguised as a nightmare.
Alora stormed inside only to meet a rampage of Smokeshadows, ripping the tent to shreds. Darkness bit her skin, making it seemingly impossible to walk through, but for Garrik, she’d try.
With each step, darkness raged with impossible strength. Wood clashed with bone and flesh, and she realized her knees had collided with the cot frame.
Garrik seized on top, lying on his back. Sweat-soaked clothing clung to him. His face violently shifted between the beast of the Savage Prince and his own, as if they were both required to set himself free. Garrik’s half-clawed hands tore shreds into his blankets, and he gasped for air, choking out one name.
“ Alora .”
Before she could lay her hands on him, Garrik jolted off the cot. He flew over the edge, catapulting himself to the furs on shaking hands and knees. In retching heaves, his muscles spasmed, fighting to remain upright as he vomited and clenched his abdomen.
With a back-breaking bend upward, a savage airwave burst at the walls of his tent before he tore his throat apart in an agonizing scream.
The same realm-piercing wail as inside the nightmare.
Black veins bulged across every piece of exposed skin, and he painstakingly wailed over and over. Smokeshadows cut across his body like daggers, ripping his clothing, almost punishment-like in its sheer brutality.
Alora panicked. He’s going to rip himself apart.
Then the serpent’s voice returned. “Come back to me, my pet.” Why did it sound so stars-damned alluring? “They’re gone. You have nothing left. ”
Like hell, he doesn’t. She’d cut that female’s head off and watch her writhe as all the life drained from her cold-blooded veins.
A sharp pain ripped through Alora’s head. The tent began to succumb to the dream again. He was pulling her back inside. Lingering halfway in a Middleworld and his tent.
The female stretched out her blackened hand to him.
Garrik wailed. The sound like someone’s world had crumbled beneath them.
On his knees, the half nightmare faded—ripped away directly before her fire-filled eyes. His head flew backward with intensive force as corded arms opened wide, summoning his Smokeshadows to?—
“ Kill me !” A command that darkness must obey.
Smokeshadows gathered until sharpened daggers formed, rising high above him, and without warning … they dove.
“ No !” Alora lunged.
Colliding with Garrik, she wrapped herself around him, melding their bodies together in a perfect fit. Alora hooked her legs around his back and arms around his neck as starfire exploded, and she caught each dagger before they embedded into skin.
Somewhere within her, she bellowed deep in her chest, “Darkness, you cannot take him !”
Smokeshadows readied to strike again.
She squeezed Garrik tighter, and a voice she didn’t recognize as her own demanded, “ You will obey the commands of starfire. Do not touch him !” The voice shook the tent.
Smokeshadows tore back on themselves in retreat, misting away into every corner and under every object in there.
Garrik trembled as he dropped onto his heels.
Alora frantically wept, her voice broken. “Don’t ever do that again!” Quivering arms tightened around him as if the act of releasing him would allow him to fade to dust. She growled, “You bastard . How could you leave us?”
Icy arms embraced her, and Garrik’s head sunk into her bare shoulder. “You’re alive?” he sobbed, barely able to whisper the words.
“We all are.” She cupped the back of his head as her fingers weaved through his hair.
He repeated, “You are … alive?”
Brushing soaked hair from his face. “It wasn’t real.”
“I saw you die. I could not save you.” Agonized sobs broke through Garrik’s body; tears relentlessly flooded down his face. Corpses were warmer than his skin. His touch carried the sensation of being frozen alive. Of death.
Alora willed starfire to pulse in her palms, hoping to warm him, to calm that terrible, terrible fear as she said, “You did save me.”
Again, he broke. Collapsing against the cot and pulling her with him. Garrik’s hand desperately fisted her hair, tenderly pulling her forehead to his, and hoarsely rasped, “Is this real? Are you real?”
“I’m real. Alive. I’m right here.”
“Alora.” Acceptance rippled off him in waves. He yielded to her warmth, yet their embrace never shifted.
Alora adjusted onto her knees and lifted his face to look at her. He appeared so heartbreakingly gone. Any ounce of life in those enchanting eyes … had faded as if he still replayed the nightmare behind them.
“I lost you … failed you … I?—”
“Look at me,” Alora demanded softly, cupping his wet cheeks. Her burning fingers gently brushed away freezing tears. “You haven’t failed anyone. We’re all still here. I’m alive. You’re alive. She didn’t take us from you.” A warm hand settled over his heart, and Alora radiated heat across his skin. “Feel that. It’s not the chill of death. Feel it,” she demanded and pulsed it into his heart.
He shivered. “I cannot get her out of my head.”
Alora stroked her thumb on his ice-fevered face and stared into his tormented eyes. “I know.”
“She haunts me no matter where I am. No matter how many times I try to refuse her …” He drew in sharp, painful breaths.
She had never seen him so far gone.
“I am haunted by her promises as she fucked me.” Garrik’s head fell against the cot. “Thalon’s Earned ripped from his scalp. His family’s sword plunged through his chest. Aiden in my dungeon cell, beaten and whipped by Brennus. Jade burned by Malik. Eldacar back in Magnelis’s library.” He heaved in a strangled breath. “And I cannot save them. Too weak to open my eyes.”
Garrik’s face turned grave, trembling. “You … dying in my arms as she rips your heart out through your back.” He paused, struggling to form words. “I would rather die than live without you.”
“No. Listen to me. Death would be far worse than all this.”
He shook his head. “There are worse things than death.”
“ You dying would be worse than death.” Parting her lips and hitching a breath, Alora pinched her brows at her words and the panicked stare in his eyes. Her eyes widened, and she pulled away as if something had punched her in the chest, stealing the air from her lungs.
In his eyes, she noticed the fine details of swirling polished metal. Of smoke and ash floating in clouds. For the first time truly seeing the enchanting glowing silver as a speck of darkness flashed. And as quickly as it was there, it wasn’t.
Garrik went rigid when her fingers gently traced a scar up his core to his chest. Resting the palm over his heart that she felt crumbling.
“Please … don’t leave me.” Garrik’s voice cracked.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Not now. Not ever. She soothingly rubbed his shoulder and the back of his neck, continuing to pulse warmth against his skin. He was so cold— too cold —frighteningly frigid. Even his breath blew in a cloud of vapor as his breathing fell shallow. Branch-like paths of black veins sprouted across the skin, covering his aching heart.
“I need to get you warm. You can’t stay like this,” she whispered.
But his eyes were fading to the blackened abyss. Garrik’s breaths fell alarmingly shallow. “I’m so tired,” he stuttered.
“ Please , stay awake.” Don’t go back to the nightmare, not back to?—
“So … tired.” That unusual heartbeat faded more to where she was uncertain if it would beat again. Skipping—dangerously slow. Garrik’s eyes narrowed and shifted, staring beyond her, into a distant world.
Fading.
Alora panicked. There was no pulse of energy—the shield remained. This was something else overcoming him, pulling him back into the horrific nightmares.
“Don’t go back there— stay with me !” she cried, shaking him.
Garrik’s head slumped to the side on his cot. His eyes fluttered.
“ No. Please !”
The room fell to darkness.