Fresh tears spilled down her face. He didn’t want a weak human.
The physical pain of that day was buried in the deepest crevices of Dyna’s being. The words Cassiel said when he rejected the bond had torn her open, and she heard the sound her soul had made when it shattered. The agony and heartbreak. The betrayal of the compulsion taking over. It was all there. Planted the moment he left her on the floor as he walked away.
“Where was he when I needed him?” Dyna wrapped her arms around herself as all the broken pieces of her soul shuddered. “Where was he when I needed him!” she screamed, choking on a sob.
The question tore at her like hooks peeling her skin. She doubled over from the pain, holding her stomach as she wept.
The lieutenant reached for her, but Zev blocked her. Lucenna was suddenly there, and she wrapped Dyna in a tight embrace. They were the only thing holding her up now.
Eyes closing, Dyna felt her throat shut with the words she had to say. “Go, Sowmya, and do not return. I want nothing to do with him anymore.”
Dyna’s dayswere filled with pretending. She pretended she was fine. She pretended she had told the truth. She pretended her eyes didn’t burn with unshed tears when she heard the lieutenant fly away.
She pretended not to be afraid when the nightmare came again.
But this time, it was different.
Cassiel wasn’t as she remembered him. The face was the same, but he had golden hair and eyes the color of a clear sky. With a crown of Seraph fire and pearlescent white wings that glowed in the light. She heard sounds of distant laughter as he playfully chased a young woman with silken brown tresses. Her gown swished past the flowering bushes as she ran through a garden until he cornered her in the gondola … below aHyalustree.
He tilted her chin as his lips gently pressed into hers.“You are the one I choose. In this life and in the next one.”
Those words resonated through Dyna like a beat of a drum.
He lifted a necklace with a glowing iridescent crystal. The young woman smiled at him, so hopelessly in love. Her golden crown caught the sunlight, as did her bright green eyes. Dyna’s breath caught sharply. The unnamed queen looked past his shoulder, right at her.
Horror rocked through her chest at the sight of her own face. Dyna stumbled backward, but her foot found only open darkness, and it dragged her into an abyss.
She jerked up awake in her mat with a gasp.
Her heart pounded wildly, a sheen of sweat on her skin. God of Urn … what was that?
She had seen that garden scene before, in the Morphos Court, when she had been trapped in the Wyspwood.
And the male who looked like Cassiel … matched the face from the portrait in Lord Jophiel’s Hall. Was that … King Kahssiel?
Dyna stared at the mossy ground blankly. The shock subdued her, tangling her thoughts. King Yoel had never clarified if the rumor held any truth. Yet … it gave reason as to why Cassiel had such gifts.
If it’s true … then the young woman with her face …
Dyna shook her head. “It was only a dream.”
“Was it?”
She jumped at the voice. Dyna looked around the mossy clearing they slept in, and her gaze landed on Leoake standing atop a ledge of earth beneath a white tree. A soft glow seemed to hover off the atmosphere, and Dyna questioned if she was indeed awake. Her Guardians were all soundlessly asleep in their mats around the campfire that had long died before the light of dawn.
“Sometimes, our minds know more than we do, and it chooses how and when to show us such things.” He smiled down at her slyly. “Yours is speaking to you.”
“Then why does it only show me nightmares?” Dyna asked faintly.
“Are they nightmares?” Leoake canted his head, making one of his pointed ears peek out of his green hair.
“I don’t know.”
His smile sharpened. “Oh, but you already know the answer …dream walker.”
A hand shook her awake, and Dyna blinked up at Zev.
“You were talking in your sleep,” he said.
