I was desperate for connection after a lifetime of isolation. Desperate for touch after years of carefully maintained distance. Desperate to be seen as something other than a vessel for ancient magic and a conduit for sacred blood.
That night, I gave up fighting.
When sleep came, I didn't resist. When the dreams began, I didn't try to wake or push them away or recite meditation mantras to clear my mind. When Kaelen's hands found my throat, I tilted my head back to give him better access, exposing the vulnerable column of my neck. When Flynn's teeth grazed skin, I gasped his name into the darkness of the dreamscape. When Thane wrapped me in his arms, I burrowed deeper into the safety of his embrace. When Elias set me burning, I let myself become ash and be reborn, welcomed the transformation instead of fearing it.
Somewhere between dream and waking, in that liminal space where consciousness blurred, I heard them speaking. Not to mebut to each other, their voices tangling in my unconscious mind, having a conversation they didn't know I could overhear.
She's breaking,Flynn growled, but there was satisfaction in it, the pleasure of a predator who'd cornered his prey.
She's choosing,Elias corrected, his voice carrying prophecy and certainty, the weight of futures he could see more clearly than any of us.There's a difference.
She needs us,Thane rumbled, protective instincts flaring even in sleep, even in dreams.Can't you feel it? How lonely she's been?
She wants us,Kaelen said with certainty that bordered on possessive, with the absolute conviction of someone who recognized desire in all its forms.And she hates herself for it. Which makes it all the sweeter.
They were all right.
I was breaking, choosing, needing, wanting, all of it at once, all of it true.
The carefully constructed Keeper who'd bled for duty was crumbling like ancient stone, and in her place rose something wild and hungry and absolutely terrifying. Something I didn't recognize but that felt more authentically me than anything I'd been before.
When I woke for morning ritual, my reflection in the washing basin showed someone I didn't recognize. My amethyst eyes held flecks of gold, amber, copper, and brown, pieces of each prince claiming space in what had once been solely mine, colonizing my irises with their colors. The golden marks had spread to my collarbone, creating patterns that looked like armor, like art, like claim marks burned into skin. They branched and twined in ways that suggested deliberate design rather than random spread.
I was changing.
Had already changed.
Was still changing with every breath, every heartbeat, every drop of blood I spilled.
And the worst part, or perhaps the best, perhaps the most honest, was that I no longer wanted to stop it.
The Gate pulsed in response to my acceptance, cracks spreading further through its surface like a mirror hit with a hammer. Each fracture sang with possibility, with the promise of what could be if I just stopped fighting what was already happening. If I surrendered to the transformation instead of clinging to who I used to be.
Come as yourself,Flynn had said days ago.
The problem was, I no longer knew who that was. The dutiful Keeper was dead, her rigid spine and controlled emotions buried under waves of sensation and connection I couldn't refuse anymore. The woman in her place was something new, someone who craved what she'd been taught to fear, who wanted what she'd been told to contain, who looked at her prisoners and saw not monsters but men, beings who suffered and hoped and desired just as she did.
Someone who was falling in love with her prisoners.
And who suspected…no, who knew with the same certainty Kaelen used when he spoke of power and desire, they were falling too.
The knowledge should have terrified me. Should have sent me running to the High Council, confessing my corruption and begging for someone else to take my place. Should have made me recommit to my vows with renewed fervor.
Instead, it settled into my chest like a key finding its lock, clicking into place with a rightness that felt like coming home.
SEVENTEEN
Aria
The bell tower's frantic clanging ripped through my dreams like claws through flesh. Not the measured toll of morning prayers or the steady rhythm of shift changes, but wild, desperate pealing that spoke of only one thing.
Attack.
I shot from my bed, the golden veins beneath my skin flaring to life before my eyes fully opened. Through the narrow window, an orange glow painted the pre-dawn sky, not sunrise, but something far worse. Smoke rose in thick columns from the valley below, and even from this distance, I could hear it.
Screaming.
Oakhaven burned.
