She would recognize it because she had been roommates with Selene for a few weeks while at Emberhold, before moving into Faction housing.
John put his arm around her waist. “Baby, please go back upstairs and let us handle this.”
Adelaide leaned into him for a moment, then stood straight and pushed his arm away. “If my baby can go through whatever this is, then the least I can do as her mother is deal with it.” She reached into the box and pulled out the letter.
Dearest Adelaide,
I’ve had the pleasure of hosting your daughter these last few months. I can’t tell you how much joy she’s brought me. She’s really something special.
I’d love for you to share my gift with her men; I’m sure they’ll enjoy it.
Give my love to Sly— or Hayes, as he preferred to be called while in my loving care. I hope to see him soon.
Until Reverie is in your gentle arms again, I sent a small piece of her to offer you comfort in these trying times.
All of my love,
Selene
Adelaide’s knees went weak. Sly and John both grabbed her around the waist with Jesse at her back. All four of them stood like that for a few brief moments, wrapped in each other, drawing strength. Then Adelaide stood tall, shook her men off, and slowly unwrapped the black silk to reveal what it held.
My chest constricted as if a vice had closed around it.
There it was.
Reverie’s Nexus mark.
Wax-sealed.
Pale.
Laid out on the silk like a prize. My vision blurred at the edges, breath hitching sharply. That mark was supposed to be decorating my baby's glowing skin, alive and thrumming, not carved from her, a piece of butchered flesh.
The bond inside me recoiled, snapping taut, dragging me under. My fists clenched until my knuckles split, blood dripping down my palm, sparks flaring at the end of my fingertips.
Around me, the others buckled in their own way—wood cracked under a slammed fist, curses hissed between clenched teeth, a strangled sob choked off into silence.
Reverie’s fathers were no better. John pressed himself to the wall, face bloodless. Jesse mouthed words of prayer silently, and Sly’s stare was empty, fixed, and hollow.
And Adelaide… she stood at the center, her grief pressing into my bones, heavier than stone. Her hands shook, her eyes shone wet, but her spine stayed rigid. Rage simmered under her grief—cold, steady, lethal.
I couldn’t take it. Couldn’t bear the silence, the weight of it. My throat scraped raw as the words forced themselves out.
“They cut her… like she’snothing.” My voice cracked, low and ragged, fury scraping against grief. I swallowed the copper taste of blood, then lifted my head, meeting every eye in the room. “Selene did this—” My voice hardened. “The bitch will pay with her life.”
The words hung there, not a threat, not a promise—just truth. And in the silence that followed, I knew even her death wouldn’t be enough.
Chapter 8
Reverie
Idragged my injured body out of bed and then into the shower. No healer had been sent. Razor had come to check on me when I didn’t show for training and managed to find enough supplies to treat my wounds.
This was the fifth day, and my back was almost completely healed. The skin had returned to its pale shade, with only light red marks where the worst of the damage had occurred.
This type of healing was unusual. It’s true that Aurathions recover from injuries faster than humans, especially when we are part of a Faction. But my Faction was far away, so I shouldn’t be able to do this kind of healing.
Unfortunately, my skin had healed where my Nexus mark had previously been, but the mark itself hadn’t returned. I wasn’t really expecting it, but I had hoped the Ancestors might see fit to restore it.
