The memory of my younger sister laughing as she snatched cookies from the kitchen flitted through my mind. Her hair, blood-soaked when her torn body had been delivered to the ball. Her pendant sliding across the rich red wetness to smack on the marble floor.
I smelled blood. Rot.
Addie’s laugh morphed into a scream that ripped through me.
My sister, murdered. Our children stolen by the rebels, the very rebels I now called my friends.
I’d sworn I’d walk barefoot through fire to avenge Addie. To find the children. To uncover the truth. I couldn’t do any of that if I failed here, seduced by what I was beginning to suspect was only an illusion of comfort.
The moment my resolve crystallized and I took a step back, the scene began to shift. It started small. A flicker at the edge of my vision. The honey cakes Lexie craved weren’t golden brown any longer. Mold covered them, and they crawled with insects.
A corpse with withered skin stretched over bone, its eye sockets empty and weeping, sat at one of the tables, lifting food to its mouth.
The fine clothes I’d admired lay tattered, stained with fluids I’d rather not identify.
The more I looked, the more the illusion continued to crumble. Scattered bones lay on the ground around the feast tables, half-hidden by beautiful tablecloths that now looked like burial shrouds. Skulls grinned from beneath displays of fruit writhing with maggots. The glimmersprites had turned from gentle fairy creatures to carrion flies.
Clean, warm water no longer filled the pools. They bubbled with something dark and thick, giving off the stench of sulfur and death. Moldy rags rested where the towels used to lay. The soap chunks resembled rancid fat.
And the books Kerralyn had yearned for appeared to be bound in human skin.
“Don’t touch anything,” I barked out.
“Why not?” Derren whined. “I stink. I’m covered in dirt and sweat and death. Just one quick bath and I’ll?—”
“It’s a trap,” I yelled. “None of this is real. We don’t react to illusions. They’re testing our focus, our judgment. Step back and actually look, don’t indulge in the horrors this place has to offer.”
Lexie blinked at me, confusion clouding her eyes. “But I can smell?—”
“Death.” I dragged her back from the table. “There’s nothing here for us but death.” When I’d hauled her free of the courtyard, I ran to Derren, snatching his hand in mine and tugging it back before he touched the water. “It’s a trap!”
I took a deep breath, forcing calm into my limbs. Every instinct I’d honed in the jungle—the sand, the rope bridge, the beast that almost killed me—told me exactly what to do. I needed to stay calm, observe patterns, protect the group, and not give the illusion any power over us.
My friends stared in shock as they finally saw what I did.
Lexie gasped and stumbled backward. Derren bolted across the courtyard, joining her.
Kerralyn took Bryson’s hand and led him away from the leather armor.
As I left the courtyard, the reek of decay permeated the air.
We shuddered, backing away from the tempting displays until we stood at the desert’s edge, the illusion broken but still pulling at us. Even now, part of me wanted to go back. To eat a slice of bread, soak in a tub, and drink a glass of wine.
Maddox joined us last, his eyes glinting with venom. I noted every flicker in his expression, every hesitation in his steps. He wanted to provoke fear, distraction, perhaps even inflict guilt, but I refused to give him the satisfaction. I’d seen horrors before, and I would not falter here.
“They want us to lose control,” I said. “Forget who we are.”
His eyes lingered on the red mark on my wrist where he’d grabbed me as I fell from the bridge. “Maybe…” His gaze flashed to mine. “They want to see if we’ll bleed for comfort.”
He shouldered his way past me, hitting my body hard enough to make me stagger. He headed for the far-right section beyond the courtyard, where a path I hadn’t noticed before wound toward the glowing buildings.
We followed him, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
As I walked, the light shifted behind us. The feast vanished, leaving only empty stone. The pools went dry. The air cooled until our breath misted.
Silence descended, chattering with the weight of the nightmare we’d almost chosen.
The path led us toward the largest of the glowing buildings, one with towers stretching toward the sky, bony fingers reaching for the clouds. The massive structure had to be three times the size of Caldrith Castle. Its white stone pulsed light.
