Ashedrifted forward, cloaked in deep-gray shadows and crimson smoke edged in silver.
My entire body stilled as Primal mist coiled around his legs and waist.
Heart thudding, I stared up at Casteel. He’d never looked more like a God of Death than he did now.
And that was what he had become.
The Joining had split my abilities between him and Kieran, changing both of them intoDeminyenPrimals—a Primal belonging to no Court. But with Cas…it had affected him differently, and I still didn’t believe that it was only due to how much eather he had in him, thanks to who his great-grandfather was. There was another reason, one I couldn’t figure out, but right now, it didn’t matter.
What did was why he’d dream-walked in this form.
Concern blossomed. I didn’t know everything there was to know about dream walking. Either thevadentia—my foresight—didn’t work in this state, somewhere between a dream and reality, or I wasn’t meant to know. But the last time, he’d lookedlike himself until he was close to waking up. Only then did the Blood Queen’s—mymother’s—treatment begin to show.
Unless this wasn’t him.
No, it was his posture and height. His broad shoulders. His presence.
This was him. But something was very wrong. I drew in a shallow breath and leaned forward.
The essence spun faster, curling over his shoulders as he jerked his head up and tilted it to the side. Through the throbbing mass surrounding him, I couldn’t see his face or his eyes.
My concern grew, chasing away the heat of his stare. I stepped toward him, lifting a hand—
The mist spinning around him ceased. A heartbeat passed. Crimson-soaked dusk whipped out over the pool. Beneath the churning shadows and smoke stretching out toward me, the frothing and bubbling water stilled and then glazed over. I jerked to a stop as the shadows spun around me, the air turning as cold as a winter’s morning in the northern lands of Masadonia. Ice formed in delicate veins, cracking as it raced over the surface of the hot springs.
“Cas,” I gasped, my breath forming a misty, puffy cloud.
The spreading ice ceased, cracking softly as the wisps of essence swirled around me, filling my lungs with his scent—pine, spice, and… It wasn’t the damp-soil-and-moss scent I had picked up on him when he was on the verge of going full Primal before. This was like that, but deeper and colder. Like…frosted ash.
My mouth dried as I searched the form before me, looking for his golden eyes. I couldn’t find any hint of them. The fractured beams of light seemed to bend away from him, leaving only a silhouette that was more starlight, dusk, and crimson smoke than man.
“Cas,” I tried again, shivering as the icy-hot tendrils whirled around me.
He remained silent.
I wet my lips, searching for something—anything—to say that would reach him, because he was here and he also wasn’t. “I love you,” I told him. “Always.”
The smoke and shadows throbbed and flickered, thinning until I saw the well-formed shape of his mouth, the fullness of his upper lip, the sharpness of a cheekbone, and his eyes. Gold, like polished citrine laced with silver, dipped in crimson. The mist slowed—
Casteel’s head suddenly jerked to the side, and those lips curved up on one side into a smirk I normally found infuriatingly charming. Now, it carried a blade-like sharpness that promised devastation for whoever it was directed at.
He was waking.
“Cas—”
It was too late.
The churning shadows retreated, slipping back across the frozen waters. The ice cracked and melted into the rising steam.
Cas’s head turned back to me, and I felt his piercing stare for just a second more before the shadows and smoke fragmented.
Then, he was gone.
But I couldn’t take my eyes off where he had stood. Not even as a white, cloudy film descended on the cavern, the walls began to fade, and I could no longer feel the water I stood in or the humid air against my skin.
And then I, too, was gone.
AND FROM THE ASH OF THE FIRST FLAME
