Princess,many voices woven into one called.Come to me, little forgotten princess. I will take you home.
Curiosity and that voice compelled me to step closer to the butterfly bouncing through the air, as if on an unfelt breeze.
Let us go home,the voices called louder, warming in tone with each step I took nearer, the sound intoxicating.Home for the princess, safe and sound, sweet forgotten princess no longer lost at all.
Yes. Home. That is what I wanted. What I needed.
When I reached out to touch it, wishing it would land on my finger and grace me with its acceptance, it flitted just out of reach.
I smiled. It was as if we were playing a game. I took a step forward, and then another, until I was walking down a set of steps, not even watching my footing in the pitch black. That little yellow butterfly was all I focused on, just out of reach. All I could see. All I could think of.
Home for the princess, it said again and again, calling me forward, step after step. Deep in the haze of my mind, logic tried to remind me,You are no princess at all. You have no titles. You are no one.But that beautiful voice kept on repeating it until I believed it true.
Home for the princess.
Home for me.
The butterfly passed through a craggy wall with effortless grace, plunging me into darkness. My heart tripped. Ihadto follow it. It would take me home. It knew the way. A nipping breeze trailed fingers across my skin, thick with the smell of damp and brine.
Come, princess,the voice demanded, pulling me from any sense.Let us go home.The familiar yellow glow illuminated a seam in the stone, like a crack of light under a door.
Desperately, my fingers found the grainy, rough seam. The wall only appeared impassable. With all my strength, I heaved the stone to the side. The rock broke my nails and made my fingertips painfully sore, but that harmonic voice dulled all aches. All questions.
Stone scraping stone echoed through the black. I shifted the impasse enough out of the way so that I could writhe through the gap, rough rock snagging on my skin, clawing my body. It was worth it for home.
I stood on the other side in a cave-like room with a pool in its center, not perfectly circular like the others I’d seen that allowed the sirens to come and go from Naiadon. This pool was uneven, like a natural fixture. An inky pond in the center of a dark cave. I should have been afraid. Should have been wary. But above the center of the pool, that happy little butterfly fluttered and my heart swelled.
Let us leave, little princess. Let us go home.A smile stretched across my face. Home. Mother hugging me, my face hidden in her thick, raven hair. Home. Father picking me up, raising me above his head with easeas I giggled so hard I couldn’t breathe. A time long ago when I was the center of their world, all candied in that yellow light. Home. Granger House bloomed in my mind. The warm sun on my skin, Vega bringing me tea and sweets as I read on a blanket in the garden, the mountains surrounding me like an embrace.
The water’s black skin gave way to more lambent butterflies that danced out of the water, one after the other, until hundreds fluttered around me, gilded and radiant, blessing me in winged kisses.
A laugh bubbled from my chest as I smiled.
Yes, they would take me home.
Then, a glorious golden stallion cantered out of the water, huffing clouds of hot steam.
Let us ride there, princess.It was the owner of that beautiful voice that sounded as if it came from Nymphaea herself.
Yes. Let us.
Wading into the pool, I found a step beneath my foot; it was slimy and slick but I did not care. I ran a hand over the steed’s smooth-coated neck. The creature whinnied, nuzzling its velvet nose into my palm.
I would go home. I would be safe. I would find my mother, and my father, and Vega. And all would be right in the world again. This magnificent steed would take me there.
With a steadying breath, I prepared to mount.
“Get thefuckaway from that!” a voice demanded, a thunderous rhythm pulsing beneath the words, drowning out the comforting call of the horse.
It was Hylos, an orb of illuminated water bobbing at his shoulder.
Chapter 15
His eyes widened in fear. “Elowyn,” he shouted, “run!”
The horse’s mouth unhinged like a snake preparing to devour its prey, revealing rows of deadly sharp teeth and wailing out a horrendous, shrill scream that pierced my world, stabbing into my eardrums and shattering the balmy dream its words had coaxed into my mind.
Dread strangled a scream of pure terror swelling in my chest.
