“Esme—” Sam starts, alarm clear in his voice as he moves to follow me.
I shake my head, holding up a hand to stop him without taking my eyes off the cursed ground ahead. “I know,” I whisper, my voice barely carrying over the oppressive silence. “I know what this is.”
“We’ll be here, Esme,” Locke says in a rush, and I can hear the worry he’s trying so hard to hide, the way his usual stoic control is fraying at the edges. “Right here when you come back.”
I walk forward, the mutated crow still perched on my shoulder like some macabre familiar, its claws digging through my cloak but not quite breaking the skin. Fog swirls around my boots with each step, and I can hear the crunch of bones beneath my feet, some small, like finger bones or ribs, others larger and more substantial. The veil between worlds shimmers before me like heat waves rising from summer stone, then parts like smoke at my approach.
The world shifts and changes around me with a sensation like falling upward, and suddenly the Plains of the Dead has vanished completely.
I’m standing in a warm, sunlit foyer that belongs to a massive home, the kind of place that speaks of comfort and love and all the domestic happiness I’ve never dared to dream of. Asweeping staircase curves upward to a second floor I can’t quite see, and the air is thick with the scents of cinnamon and cedar and something sweet baking somewhere deeper in the house. The walls are painted in warm creams and golds, and sunlight streams through tall windows to paint everything in honey-colored brightness.
I can hear laughter echoing from somewhere nearby, Ty’s loud, infectious whoop, Trys’s dry deadpan voice making some cutting observation, Rodyn’s sarcastic chuckle, and to my relief and joy, Micah’s voice threading through it all with familiar warmth. There are other voices too, familiar ones that make my heart clench with longing. Sam and Locke are there, and I can tell they’re all bickering over what sounds like a card game, their voices carrying that easy camaraderie that comes from people who’ve known each other long enough to argue without heat.
I smile despite myself, because this feels right in a way that nothing has for so long. This feels real and warm, like the kind of future I might actually deserve if I’m brave enough to reach for it.
I’m about to move toward the sound of their voices when something tugs insistently at my sleeve.
I look down and my heart stops completely.
A little boy stands there, no more than two or three years old, with the most perfect cherubic face I’ve ever seen. His eyes are bright green, Sam’s eyes, set in smooth brown skin that glows with health and happiness. Tufts of curly white hair crown his head, so much like my own that there’s no question whose child this is. His fingers are sticky with what looks like honey or jam, and he lifts his arms in that universal gesture every parent recognizes.
“Up, Mama, up,” he says with a smile that could power the sun itself, and my heart splits clean in two.
Grief threatens to bring me to my knees right there in that beautiful foyer. This is my son, the child I’ll never have, the future that was stolen from me before I even knew I wanted it. Every maternal instinct I didn’t know I possessed surges to life at once, and I have to fight back tears that feel like they might drown me if I let them start.
I don’t let my grief win. Instead, I lift him and, oh god, the weight of him in my arms is so perfect, so real. He smells like wildflowers and woodsmoke and that indefinable sweetness that belongs only to children. My arms wrap around him instinctively, protectively, and I press my lips to his soft cheek, tasting innocence and love and everything I’ve been fighting for without even knowing it.
“Gods,” I whisper against his hair, my voice thick with tears I refuse to shed. “Hi, baby boy. You’re mine, aren’t you? You’re really mine.”
I carry him through an open doorway into a grand living room that looks like something out of a fairy tale. Everyone I love is there, gathered around a massive stone fireplace where flames dance merrily, casting warm light on faces that are alive and whole and happy. They’re laughing and talking over each other, the kind of comfortable chaos that speaks of family, real family, the kind you choose rather than the kind you’re born into.
Micah gets up from where she’s been sitting cross-legged on a thick rug, her dark hair loose around her shoulders and her eyes bright with joy. She moves to us with that familiar grace, brushing a gentle kiss across the child’s brow with lips that curve in the softest smile.
“Auren,” she says fondly, her voice carrying gentle reproach. “Did you run away from Mommy again?”
My mouth forms the name before my mind can catch up. “Auren.” Just saying it aloud brings a fresh wave of tears to myeyes, because somehow I know, I know in my bones that this is his name, that this is who he would have been if the world had been kinder, if things had been different.
“Of course he did,” Sam says with warm laughter in his voice, and I turn to see him sitting beside Locke on a massive couch, both of them looking relaxed and content in a way I’ve never seen before. Sam pats the cushion between them invitingly. “You’re a crafty little pup, aren’t you? Just like your mama.”
I join them without hesitation, settling between my two loves with my son in my arms. Locke immediately leans over to press a soft kiss to my temple, the gesture so natural and easy it’s like he’s done it a thousand times before. Then he’s jumping back into some ridiculous argument with Rue about who can make the fastest kill, their voices carrying that masculine competitiveness that somehow manages to be endearing rather than annoying.
I cradle Auren against my chest and for a moment, just one perfect, shining moment, everything feels right with the world. This is what happiness looks like. This is what love feels like when it’s allowed to grow and flourish without fear, without loss, without the constant shadow of death hanging over everything beautiful.
“Some things can’t be unbroken,”a haunting voice whispers through the warmth and laughter, cold as winter wind through the perfect scene.
Then Auren screams.
I look down in absolute horror as his perfect little body begins to crumble in my arms like ash from a burned log. His smooth skin grays and flakes away, his bright eyes dim and fade to nothing, and I can only watch helplessly as everything I’ve ever wanted disintegrates between my fingers. He falls apart piece by piece, his tiny hands first, then his arms, his torso, until all that remains are those perfect white curls, and then eventhey’re gone, carried away on a wind that smells of death and endings.
I scream until my throat tears open, raw and bleeding, but the beautiful house vanishes around me like morning mist. The warmth dies, the laughter stops, and I’m left clutching nothing but empty air as I sob for the child I never got the chance to hold, the life I never got the chance to live, the happiness that was always just a heartbeat out of reach.
The world shifts again with nauseating suddenness, and I find myself curled in the fetal position in the middle of a dark forest, cold earth against my cheek and the taste of despair thick on my tongue.
Somewhere in the darkness, I can hear my mother screaming my name, calling out for me with a desperation that cuts through my grief like a blade. I rise in a panic, stumbling over roots and rocks as I run toward the sound, my heart hammering against my ribs with terror at what I might find.
I reach her cottage in Kasamere Forest to find it surrounded by soldiers in the distinctive armor of the Night Court. They’re dragging her from her home in heavy iron chains that scrape against the ground and leave deep gouges in the earth. Her usually immaculate appearance is destroyed—her dress is torn and bloody, there’s blood streaming from a gash on her temple, and her wild silver curls are matted with dirt.
She continues to scream for me and for the king, begging for help that isn’t coming, her voice hoarse and desperate in a way that makes something break inside my chest. “I demand to speak to the king!” she cries, struggling against the chains even as they cut into her wrists. “My daughter is alive! I would never betray him! I speak the truth! You can’t do this to me!”
