I placed my hand gently over hers, resting protectively on her belly. “Let the men handle this. You stay here and rest. We’ll find the blade.”
She nodded, but her eyes remained distant, clouded with worries and visions only she could see. I felt an unfamiliar helplessness. In protecting her, I asked her to deny every instinct she had to fight alongside us.
My mind churned with unease as I turned away to give her space. Who was this man she spoke of? And why did his alleged words linger in the corners of my thoughts like a shadow refusing to fade?
I rubbed my arms where Mathias’ grip had left its mark—too firm, too fraught with urgent strength. What was he not saying? I could sense the cogs turning in his mind at Lazarus’ and Salvatore’s names.
My memory flashed back to Olivia’s warning that Salvatore, the man who had once held her mother captive, was now targeting us. He wanted to claim the legendary blades for himself. The air seemed charged with unspoken truths, thick with secrets no one dared to reveal.
I stayed by Olivia’s side, holding her close until her breath evened out and sleep finally claimed her. Even then, I couldn’t bring myself to leave. Her haunting expression lingered in my mind—a stark reminder that we were all pawns in a far more dangerous game. The urgency to retrieve the moon dagger gnawed at me like a relentless ache, but doubt and fear whispered insidiously at the edges of my thoughts. Were we truly capable of finding it before our enemies did? Or were we blindly walking into the trap that would seal our downfall?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
OLIVIA
The sheets twisted and tangled around me as I tossed in bed, suffocating under the oppressive silence of Mathias’ grand estate. My mind churned, unable to shake the echoes of that encounter in the cave today, the hiss of serpents, the cryptic gaze of the old man, and the fleeting glimpse of the moon dagger.
Moonlight crept through the curtains, casting pale streaks across the room. My eyelids grew heavy, surrendering to the pull of sleep. But it came with a familiar companion—the dream, relentless and haunting—I gripped the Blade of Shadows tightly, running across a battlefield littered with the fallen. The ground was a grotesque mosaic of twisted bodies, broken soldiers strewn like discarded marionettes. Lifeless horses lay sprawled, their glassy eyes frozen in eternal terror, while the earth drank the dark, viscous blood pooling beneath them.
Panic clawed at my chest as I spun, searching for pursuers. The air was thick with the whistle of arrows slicing through the night.
Amid the chaos, he appeared—a man cloaked in darkness, his presence commanding and unrelenting. His voice broke the stillness like the crack of a whip, each word dripping with malice. “You can’t keep running from me or my dark soldiers. You have lost this battle.”
I froze, the blade becoming an extension of my fierce resolve. I planted my feet on the blood-soaked ground. The man was Salvatore. He was my predator, and I was his prey.
“I might have lost today, but I will never allow you to take the Blade of Shadows,” I said, my voice reverberating with an authority that felt ancient and powerful.
His laughter was a cold wind that sought to wither my defiance.
“Oh, such big words,” he sneered, each step forward exuding a predator’s confidence. “But you forget, I am the Shadow Lord and hold all the power. Speaking of Shadow Lords, where is Lazarus, the all-powerful? Where are your devoted protectors, Balthazar and Zara? I don’t see your fearless husband either.”
He glanced around the battlefield, his words landing like blows, chipping away at my defenses. “At this moment, you need them the most, but here we are—just you and me.”
His eyes glinted with malicious glee as he reveled in my vulnerability. A cruel smile twisted his lips, sharp and mocking.
“I’ll make this easy for you. Don’t bother answering my questions. Just hand over the blades, and I won’t kill you. You will be my prisoner, but I will allow you to live.”
“Never,” I spat. “Never will I allow you to possess the blades.”
The dream pulsated with the tension of our standoff, the forces of light and darkness clashing in an eternal struggle. Salvatore’s shadow loomed larger, his malice saturating the air, but I stood firm, unyielding.
With a defiant cry, I thrust the sun and moon blades skyward, their edges catching the ghostly light of an unseen celestial body. My lips moved of their own accord, uttering the sacred script of the Blade of Shadows. The words felt familiar, a long-forgotten chant etched deep within my soul, resonating with the pulsating power of the daggers.
“‘Iinani ‘adeu qiwaa alsama’ aleazimati, wa’atlub mink ‘an tutliq aleinan linurka,” I said, the air around me crackling with ancient magic. The meaning hummed through my mind—I call upon the great forces of the sky. I ask of you to unleash your light.
A blinding radiance enveloped the blades, igniting them with a power that seemed to tear the fabric of my dream. Salvatore’s face contorted in agony as he clawed at the air, his scream piercing the cacophony of battle that faded into the background. The blades, now alive with furious energy, pushed him back.
“You will never possess them, Salvatore,” I said, my voice laced with a command that defied time. “I am breaking them apart, and you will never find or possess them.”
The world around me spun violently, the ground beneath my feet giving way to a maelstrom of wind and raw energy. My heart thundered as the sun and moon blades trembled in my hands, radiating an unholy intensity. Then, with a deafening crack like thunder splitting the heavens, the blades wrenched apart, severing their bond. Shockwaves rippled through the battlefield, scattering shadows and silencing the chaos.
Sweat dripped from my brow as the tempest roared around me, yet I remained untouched—a solitary force standing firm in the eye of the storm as the world unraveled.
And then, silence.
My eyes snapped open to the stillness of Mathias’ estate bedroom. The chaos of my dream receded, leaving me gasping for breath, my heart racing against the soft, steady rhythm of Roman’s slumber beside me. The room was cloaked in shadows, yet the vivid imagery of the dream clung to my mind with an unsettling clarity.
“I saw everything,” I whispered to the darkness, my voice trembling under the weight of revelation. “So clearly… so real.”
