Chapter 29
KAELERON
Loud breaths pounded in my ears together with my thundering heart as darkness closed in on me from all sides.
My fingers shook as I pushed against the cage of it, the ghostly world beyond the veil of shadows denying me as I tried to reach it.
I shoved harder, using all my might, my muscles turning watery as I tried to break through the barrier that was as solid as a steel wall despite the fact I could see through it.
It did not stop me. I shoved and shoved as the first terrified scream reached me and began battering my fists against it as she came into view.
A flash of silver hair and fearful blue eyes as she looked over her shoulder at her attacker.
The bastard seelie did not let her get far. He caught her silver braid and yanked her back to him, grinning as she cried out and stumbled, losing her footing and crashing to the marble floor.
“Saphira!” I yelled but no sound left my lips as I battered my cage, desperately trying to reach her.
The male hauled her onto her feet by her hair and she fought him, slapping her hands against his face and his chest, shoving and then striking him with her fists as she tried to break his hold.
He backhanded her, toppling her again, and her head cracked off the hard floor.
Blood trickled down her temple as she pushed up on her hands, trying to shake off the blow.
I growled, gritting my teeth so hard I felt sure they would crack as the darkness closed in further, crowding me now, suffocating me as I watched the brute pull her back onto her feet only to take pleasure in striking her down again.
She breathed hard, fingers clutching the floor as she spat blood on it.
Crimson coated her lips as she lifted a defiant glare.
The wretched seelie kicked her in the face, sending her sprawling on her back.
“Saphira!”
No sound left my lips again as shadows swirled around me, as they launched as one at the barrier that kept me from her.
My wild eyes darted to keep track of her as the male yanked her onto her feet again and she stared at him, her beautiful face bloodied and beaten, but that defiance still shining in her eyes.
Dread pooled in my stomach as a weight pressed down on my chest.
I knew what was coming.
I tried to look away, not wanting to see it, but my eyes refused to obey me, my body held in some kind of trance that rendered me powerless.
Fear gripped me, icy talons that closed around my heart to squeeze and pierce it.
I pressed my hands to the shadowy barrier between us as twin walls of darkness slowly closed together from my left and right, narrowing my view of her as she stared up at the seelie, facing her fate.
No.
I shook my head and pushed against the cage of shadows, sinking my own talons into it as I struggled to keep sight of her through that thin vertical gap in the darkness.
The ground beneath my boots trembled and bucked, the quake growing stronger with each long second that stretched into an eternity as I stood there, immobile, useless, unable to stop this from happening even as my soul screamed in rage and agony.
And wrath.
The fae gripped her hair, pulling her head back, but still she stared at him, defiant to the end.
Even as the blade sliced across the front of her throat.
Even as her blood spilled like a waterfall down her chest.
Even as the life drained from her eyes.
The floor beneath me cracked wide open, shadows streaming from it, lashing at everything, pulverising the stones around me to dust as I threw my head back and screamed her name.
Chunks of black stone and splinters of wooden beams hurtled towards me, swept up in the storm, being pulled into a point before me as everything around me crumbled and stars pricked the endless darkness.
Let the world die.
I no longer cared.
I stared at that oblivion as the castle was pulled into that powerful void swirling like a maelstrom before me, stood there and did nothing as my court was torn apart, as the mountains and seas followed it and a hundred thousand screams of terror rang like music in my ears.
Let it all burn.
Because she was gone.
“Kaeleron!” A bright, warm light pierced the storm of shadows as she screamed my name right back at me.
Hands gripped and shook me. Violently pulled me up from the abyss.
“Wake up!” Fear coated her voice. Fear that cut me like a knife. “If you like your castle in one piece, wake the hell up now!”
She shrieked.
I felt the warmth of her blood.
The softness of her flesh.
My shadow passing through it like a blade.
Saphira.
I snapped awake, jolting upright, mind reeling as I stared at her where she crouched beside me on my bed, her skin far too pale and her stricken expression morphing to relief as the world stilled, as I looked into her eyes and saw that she was alive.
I pulled her into my arms, crushing her against me as I fought to catch my breath, fought to calm myself and believe that this was real, that it had only been a nightmare and she was safe.
My head continued to spin, my body trembling as the fear gripped me still and I saw flashes of that dream.
I clutched her to me, pinning her hard against me, sure I was hurting her but unable to master this need to hold her so tightly, to feel her in my arms and know she was here with me.
I rested my head on her shoulder, breathing her in.
She was alive. She was unharmed. She was alive.
Her arms closed around me, holding me gently, her touch a balm that soothed my ragged nerves as I exhaled shakily.
Her fingers stroked up and down my spine, bliss against my sweat-slicked bare skin, as she murmured, “What were you dreaming that rattled you so badly? I thought you were going to shatter the castle.”
Another shaky breath left me.
How close had I come to unleashing all my pain on this world?
I closed my eyes and leaned more heavily on her, needing the contact between us as my trembling subsided and the things I had seen slowly dissipated into the ether.
But the pain remained.
“It was just a nightmare.”
She leaned her cheek against the back of my head. “About me?”
“This time.” Those two words sounded as heavy as they felt in my heart, filled with all the pain that lived there.
“This time,” she echoed. “Do you often have nightmares?”
I did not answer that question.
I did not let her go either.
She stroked my back, her touch as gentle and light as her voice as she asked, “What do you see?”
I tensed, barely leashing the instinct to push her away as something within me rebelled, wanting to silence her, to make her leave or just deny her.
My heart beat unsteadily, racing as flashes of the nightmare replayed, only this time the female I saw flickered between Saphira and another.
I slowly shut down and caged the pain that demanded I push Saphira away, goading me into lashing out at her to drive her away so I did not have to answer that question.
Because I did not want this beautiful, warm female to know my failings.
I did not want her to see how weak I truly was.
My breath rattled from me, bathing her shoulder.
And some fragile part of my heart that feared her scorn but desperately needed her approval—her love—whispered, “I relive the day I lost my parents and brother. I see my failure and it torments me.”
The motion of her fingers up and down my spine did not even slow.
“You saw me this time?” she whispered, her cheek soft against the back of my head as she held me a little closer.
I nodded.
“Does anyone know about these nightmares?”
The soft, yearning part of me suffocated in thick shadows as I pushed her back, away from me, breaking contact with her. Too much. She asked too much and needed to remember her place. I scowled at her, a vain attempt to scare her away that failed as she took hold of my trembling hand.
Rather than pushing me as I feared, she said nothing as she remained kneeling beside me on my bed, toying with my fingers, her blue gaze on them rather than my face. She looked as pale as I was, as drawn and tired, and as reluctant to let go of me as I was to let go of her.
“Did I wake you?” My voice seemed loud and abrasive in the heavy, comfortable silence as we sat together in my room, lit only by the moonlight streaming in through the arched windows.
I hated the way she tensed, her fingers tightening against mine, as she solemnly shook her head.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she whispered, and began playing with my fingers again, hers trembling a little as her brow furrowed slightly and I sensed her mood shifting, growing sombre, and scented the tears that lined her lashes before the moonlight caught on them, turning them silvery.
“Because of what happened to your parents?” I turned my hand in hers and closed my fingers over it, holding it gently in mine.
She nodded, still staring at our joined hands.
It hit me that if anyone might understand my pain, my grief, and my feelings of helplessness—of uselessness over my failure to save my parents and my brother—it might be her.
And by the Great Mother, this burden was becoming too heavy to carry alone.
She stroked her other hand over mine, gently caressing it as she stayed with me, keeping me company and perhaps stealing a little company for herself.
She would not push me to tell her anything.
I knew her well enough to know that. If I refused to speak about it, she would accept that rather than forcing me and paining me.
She did not need to push me.
I wanted to tell her.
Gods, I did.
But it was hard.
It was hard to form the words, to push past this barrier that felt like a physical thing inside me, a dam that was holding back too much pain and grief, and guilt, and had been for a long time.
It was hard, even when I knew that once that first word came, the others would follow it and I would feel so much better for it.
I would feel cleansed. Clean for the first time in centuries.
As if I had offered up my soul for absolution and she had granted it.