“What’s a dyad?” I asked, suddenly lost.
“Someone who can read thoughts. Or dreamcast—which means pulling others into dreams, or walking among theirs,” Caius supplied.
“It’s a power that died with the Ancients,” Endymion said before cutting Caius a sharp glance that I couldn’t decipher.
“And Thaddeus trying to siphon your magic is what made you leave?” Caius asked.
I scoffed. “You’d think that would’ve been the catalyst. But nope. I was stupid enough to let him try again, almost killing me the second time—and still returned.”
“Damn the sex musta been really life altering for you to come crawling back after that,” a voice drawled from behind me.
I shot to my feet and whirled to find Artton, arms crossed, thick frame leaning nonchalantly against one of the archways; and the crooked tilt of his mouth set me on fire.
“Are you fucken kidding me?” I seethed.
“I could ask you the same thing.” He pushed off the stone arch, stepping forward. “As if that man wasn’t already an ill omen before he tried to steal your magic. I mean, a little convenient that he just so happened to be there when your whole life was upended—don’t you think?”
“How long have you been there?” I seethed.
“Long enough to know that your life choices are…questionable, at best.”
“That’s enough,” Endymion said, coming to my side.
“Like fuck it is,” Artton snapped back. “Seriously, you’re going to let the fetus call the shots?”
Endymion took another step forward. “Mind yourself.”
Artton’s words began eroding the mortar of my façade one truth at a time. “You know what?” I said before my carefully curated walls crumbled. “Artton’s right. Who needs a fetus’ help when the lot of you have been doing such a smashing job over the past five centuries. In fact, why not invite the Ancients to figure this all out, seeing as how they dumped this problem on me like cowards.” All three of them seemed to flinch, but I didn’t care as I took two steps back toward the shattered doors. “Talk among yourself, and when you’re done, let me know when you’ve decided which one of you wants my powers—seeing as how that seems to be the only plan anyone’s willing to come up with.”
The lines of Artton’s face hardened, Endymion mirroring him.
“Nyleeria,” Caius said, imploring me to stay.
“Don’t.” I put a hand up then, without another word, I turned my back on them and walked out, the shattered glass crunching underfoot the only sound.
Keeping my head down to avoid awed gazes and unwanted bows, I made my way back to my quarters with haste, grabbed my two remaining daggers, and sought out targets. Earlier I’d noted a small cluster of tall, albeit strange, trees to the right of the closest exit from the residence’s wing, and I tucked myself into its shade just before Artton’s words crumbled my remaining composure.
My grips waned, and the blades slipped from my hands to the soft ground below. Back against a tree, the smooth bark gave no resistance as I slid down its trunk to join the daggers. Once at the bottom, I let my head tilt back and closed my eyes, which burned with unspent tears that wouldn’t come.
The part of me that seemed quick to rage these days wanted to slap that smug smirk off Artton’s face; a larger part knew I was angrier at myself for the truth in his words than the fact he’d weaponized it against me. The hardest part was my inability to look back and know which choices were mine and which belonged to the bedazzled, magical noose Thaddeus had tied around my neck. Thenagain, I’d recklessly made for the Autumn Court to save the twins after I’d turned the diamond into pink dust—so maybe it wasn’t to blame.
I shook the thoughts away. Looking down, I palmed one of the daggers in my right hand and idly dug the rich soil with the blade as unending questions assaulted me with a pestilent fervor. The most insidious of them was why I even cared about the twins at all? If I was being as brutally honest with myself as Artton had been, then me risking myself to rescue them would be tantamount tocrawling back to Thaddeus—as it was so eloquently put. There were no two ways about it—Cassy was a bitch, and Leighton wasn’t much better. And although the ruthlessly logical part of my brain knew this as true, a part of my soul cried out for me to save themdespitethese truths. Like if I didn’t, I’d lose a part of who I was. And maybethatwas the fragment of me that had survived all of this; that made me worthy of the spark. Why I was born human but chosen to become fae.
Or, maybe that was all just a crock of shit, and I was trying to justify my terrible instincts.
A twig snapped to my left, and I didn’t have to look to know Endymion had found me. “Come to tell me that you’ve decided to take me back to the Autumn Court after all?” I said dryly, jabbing my blade into the ground harder than necessary.
He crouched down and took a seat across from me, his long legs stretching to my left as he rested his back against an adjacent tree.
“I’m sorry for Artton.”
“Don’t be.” I shrugged, keeping my focus on the very important hole I was digging. “He’s right.”
“No, he’s not.”
I let out a sharp scoff.
“Look at me, Nyleeria.”
