My teeth ground so hard, I feared one might crack. “I’m well aware of myonlypurpose to you. It’s been clear from the very first day we’ve met. Hasn’t changed.”
His nostrils flared, eyes darting around my face.
Tell me,I wanted to demand.Tell me what’s actually going through that head of yours, what changed.And yet I couldn’t say the words, because I was too damn angry, and the look on his face suggested he’d only throw them back in my face.
With a jerk, he released me and stood. “Stefano,” he bellowed.
I shoved to my feet as Stefano’s head appeared through the door.
“Take her back to her room,” he ordered, stalking away, “and keep her the fuck away from Aric in her free time.”
If I was stronger or bigger, I would have chased him across the room and taken him to the ground—showed himexactlywhat I thought of his boorish behavior.
Savoring that daydream, I looked at Stefano. “You should keep me away from Harthon too, unless you want your Princeps to lose important parts of his body.”
Chapter 21
The dark skies of night had swallowed me. An empty, never-ending blackness stretched as far as I could see, disrupted only by a ball of light floating before my eyes.
Familiarity whispered at the edges of my mind like wisps of smoke. I knew this scene, but from where, I couldn’t grasp.
The ball launched into motion, wrenching at the kernel in my chest with breath-stealing strength. I had no choice but to follow, lest my ribs crack under the force of its pull.
The pace was uncomfortable on my bare feet. Everything below my waist was swallowed by darkness, but I’d spent enough time trekking through wooded lands to know what lay beneath my feet. Twigs, rocks, and roots dug into my soles with every blind step.
A gnarled, scraggly shape emerged on my right, illuminated by the passing orb. A tree limb, green leaves dangling from its tip like teardrops. Wonder widened my eyes. It was nothing I hadn’t seen in Harthon’s garden, but still, it was an incredible sight to witness.
A similar branch appeared to my left, and another behind it, and then it was like I was walking a path through the woods—woods that werealive.But the heat in my chest felt tight, like it was stretched and strung out, waiting for relief that had yet to come.
Without warning, my toe rammed into something hard. Pain flared along my nail, and I scrambled to catch myself on my hands.
My ribs lurched before I fully recovered.
I gasped at the sudden pressure and looked up. The ball of light had continued without me, increasing its pace. The kernel in my chest tugged harder, yanking me to my feet and urging me into a clumsy jog. Like a puppet pulled by a frantic master, I raced toward the light that kept moving faster, further, the parade of tree branches blurring into a haze of green—
The orb abruptly stopped. I slid to a halt, panting. It didn’t move again, even as my breaths evened and my frenzied pulse slowed. When I trusted this was no trick—that the light was, perhaps, taking a rest of its own—I let my gaze drift to the branch beside me.
Where I expected to see vibrant green leaves, there was…nothing.
Nothing but flaking, shriveled bark, gray in the glowing light.
The sight was a dagger to my belly, a visceral force that had me staggering back. I stared at it for another breath, and then I approached the limb, shaking fingers meeting its delicate flesh.
It was warm.
My fingertips trailed down its arm to the tip.There.I leaned closer. The curled, sooty tip was beginning to open, as if giving way to a bloom—
“Etarla,wake up. You’re going to be late.”
In an instant, I was off my back and on my knees, blankets tossed aside, fingers curled into fists.
Stefano’s wide blue eyes took me in with mild alarm. “You alright?”
I blinked as I sought my bearings, that darkness and haunting tree limb still occupying the edges of my vision.Stefano stood beside the bed in my borrowed bedroom, muted light filtering through the window.
Light.
“What time is it?”
