My kingdom of shining white stone high upon the mountain is surrounded by dark clouds. A power—evil, wild, and ancient—churns like a boiling cauldron, consuming all in its path.
It knows me.
It sees into my soul.
The storm howls like hungry wolves. Bodies are strewn in the open fields, fallen men at the feet of the once-great city. I stand over them—over my dying friends. Marcus and Jared lie prostrate, their open eyes clouded and skin gray with death.
In the dream, I know that using the Rings will kill me—and I don’t care. There’s nothing left for me.
I see Aren sprawled in the grass, her eyes sightless and her dark hair a cloud around her head.
Everyone I care for is dead.
And that emptiness, that hollow in my heart, fills with the Whisting.
In the nightmare, as always, I raise my arms, and the storm surges. The power within me finds a home in the whirlwind. The darkness roars like a great beast as the world around me explodes.
…
At dawn, I pack up my tent alone. We walk most of the morning with our bellies still empty, our feet still sore. After my restless night, the nightmare still has its claws in me.
Aren’s hand brushes mine with infinite gentleness. It’s like she senses my dark thoughts, and I nearly jump out of my skin.
“Sorry,” she says softly.
The moment it takes me to settle my heart back into my chest is excruciating, but I manage a smile.
“You okay?” she asks. She regards me so sweetly, with such genuine concern, that for a moment, I forget we aren’t actually betrothed. I almost kiss her then and there. And not on the cheek, either.
Can I claim that we need to keep up appearances for Marcus’s men?
I wave a hand with studied carelessness. “Yeah, nothing to worry about.”
She doesn’t press, and I wonder if she believes me. Instead, she pulls an apple from her pack, tosses it into the air, and flicks it off the end of her elbow. I catch it deftly.
“You need it more than I do,” she quips, grinning. “You’re all skin and bones. Losing your vaunted good looks a bit, and I know you pride yourself on that.”
My feet trail to a stop, and a smile tugs at my lips as I watch Aren walk ahead. The way she looks at me over her shoulder, with a glint in her eye that wasn’t there before, makes the heat rise inside my skin.With a delicate hand, she tucks a lock of hair that’s fallen from her bun behind her ear, and I can’t take my eyes off her.
Still smiling, I take a large bite of my apple, wiping the juice off my chin with the back of my wrist, then catch up to her. I walk close enough behind her that I can smell the warm scent of her hair. Somehow, she knows how to make me feel better.
But my loneliness follows me like a shadow. Even if Aren seems to be warming to me, I can’t let her get too close—not until these cursed Rings are out of my life.
My nightmares are a constant reminder that I’m on the road toward a lonely end. Maybe this does end with Marcus digging the Rings out of my corpse for my father to wield.
Maybe that’s the fate I deserve.
The path winds over hills, cutting across the field like a snake. I nearly walk into Aren when she suddenly stops, just around the bend.
She’s stock-still, frozen, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. The abject terror on her face stops me cold.
I follow her gaze to a body in the middle of the road. A body with wavy, black hair, sightless brown eyes, and blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. Her hand is outstretched toward us like an eerie warning.
The corpse is that of Aren’s kidnapped body double, Lydia.
I haven’t escaped danger by simply braving the Bandai Bridge and crossing the border or even by evading the Kilandrar.
The enemy is here, and they’re close.
