At some point, I fell.
I continued to fall.
The magic around me grew warm, then hot, then suffocatingly hot and dense as I fell deeper into its source. Power vibrated there. Terrifying, fascinating, out-of-control power, like an electrical storm held inside the thinnest of glass balls. One wrong vibration and it would smash outward, rippling fire in all directions, like a dragon breathing flames.
Like before, images swam behind my eyes, but these were different, darker somehow, like ghosts trapped behind a mirror.
A long hallway stretched upwards, filled with rose-colored light. I knelt on a cushion on black and white marble floors, gazing at a black altar. On either side, windows streamed with sunset hues, clouds massing above a high, glass ceiling. Firelight shone all around me.
Everything about it felt so incredibly, crushingly, mind-numbingly sad.
I knelt inside a burnt, blackened circle, in a house filled with blood and ghosts.
More fragments of life flashed through my awareness, just as silent, just as devastated with grief and slow madness.
A towering library filled with books. A ritual circle in place of the burnt ring, painted in blood and bone and chalk. Tapestries and swords. Rows of bottles filling tall wooden shelves. The walls continued to stretch upwards, so many stories I got dizzy trying to follow them, unable to find my feet. Fireflies danced over a dark lawn, sparks of magic leaving hands as two hooded figures dueled with magic and swords, exploding chunks out of trees and stone statues, circling one another in a fascinating, deadly, eerily-graceful dance. A dungeon appeared around me, freezing cold and dripping water, rusted chains hanging from the walls.
Blood splattered across a cracked floor.
I felt him there. Stronger that time. Unmistakeable.
A choked gasp left my throat.
The grief in that underground tomb grew so intense I wanted to scream, to claw at the wet stone with my fingers. I felt him reaching for me, trying to get out, screaming for me, and I choked on my own breath. My heart went from feeling constricted in my chest to slamming painfully into my ribs, trying to snuff itself out.
Gods, I had to get to him.
I had to get to him, before––
3
Uneasy Feeling
“Hey.” A worried voice, masked in lightness. “It’s time to stop teasing me now, lovely. Come back. Come back, or I’m going to be really annoyed with you.”
I groaned.
I forced my eyes open, if only to reassure him I was okay.
The instant I did, my head exploded in pain.
For long-feeling seconds I could only lie there, gasping, my hand on my forehead as the pain peaked, then slowly began to recede. When I’d finally recovered enough to be able to think, I looked up to find Alaric’s face just above mine.
His fingers squeezed where he held my bicep in a warm hand.
“Leda, gods, are you all right? Oh, Eye of Ra. Your nose…”
I tensed at the horror in his voice, then, hearing him belatedly, lowered my hand to my mouth and nose. I touched the skin tentatively, already smelling a whiff of copper. When I pulled my fingers away, they were stained red.
The dungeon returned to the spaces behind my eyes.
I tasted blood, and briefly, I wondered if it was his.
I grimaced at the thought. Gods, what was wrong with me? Of course it was mine. Bones wasn’t here. I wasn’t in that dungeon. It was just more chimaeras, more lies.
Even so, I felt like I’d been punched in the chest. Again.
“Fuck,” I choked out.
