“You will pay for what you have done.” Claudian was lost to his grief, unable to look away from the smiling faces of the king and his confidants. His chest rose and fell in rib-cracking defiance of all he had lost.
Claudian stabbed his ruined blade into the tapestry of the two of them—just boys who could not have known where they would find themselves. He dragged bloody slices through the fabric of Tarquin’s face. He cleaved the image of them in two, brothers no more.
“Someday, you will regret what you have done.I swear it.”
He had not yet seen the golden light glowing softly behind him.
Chapter one
Seren
My mind bloomed in blurs of color and light, the last hopeful reaching of a midwinter flower toward the weakening sun. The dreams were a plague—stealing into me night after night—but come morning, they were mere wisps of memory.
I felt as if I were truly there, beside my unwitting companions—the same as they always were.
The girl with the chestnut hair, streaming in curling ribbons to the small of her back, twirled in an endless waltz. Her dizzying smile was immovable, her glittering silver dress throwing shards of iridescent light around an ornate ballroom. Musical laughter echoed off the walls, joyous, and her eyes glowed golden in the light, one just the barest shade brighter than the other.
She was vibrant, and I was no more than a specter under the starlight.
My armor shone dully, not quite catching the spray of candlelight. I was muted, intangible as I shadowed the girl, knowing I had seen her before. Knowing that I was closer than ever to remembering her upon waking.
The scene sped forward impossibly fast. The twirling dances lurched onward, and the string orchestra swelled. The room grewdarker, colder, a fever-pitched madness overtaking me, and the girl in the mirrorball dress was no longer smiling.
Something was wrong, but I could not parse through the disorientation of the rapidly progressing scene. I was close enough to touch the chestnut haired girl, but the words she spoke were garbled, as if she were underwater.
A man approached, speaking rapidly. Her expression drew into itself, bare and discomfited, but I could not make out anything clearly besides the twisting gold circlet, glinting sharply upon his reddened hair.
“It’s alright,” I assured her, but even I did not believe it. “Everything will be alright.”
My voice was thick as honey, trapped in my throat with a cloying discomfort.
The man reached out to grab the girl, and I made to step between them. The instinct to protect her rose within me, though I swore I had shuttered that softness in myself long ago. His hand passed through me, a distinctly chilling sensation. I cried out, but no sound passed my lips. Bile rose in my throat, biting and acidic, but I did not turn away from the chestnut haired girl.
“I am here,” I whispered, throat tight with untethered emotion. The inexplicable thread between us pulled taut.
Her brow furrowed, head tilting just so, as if she were looking for something—someone, but the moment our gazes might have locked, I was ripped from one dreamscape and sent sprawling into the next.
As the world steadied around me, I gazed upon the ruins of a cathedral. The darkened room was lit only by flickering candle light. Thin bands of smoke wafted toward the arched ceiling far above.
Had I truly been there, I might have stumbled over the rubble of strewn stone and caught my toes on the twisting vines that snaked the floor. But in this world I was not real; my limbs were not corporeal, and they passed through the wreckage unharmed. I pressed my fingers hard into the flesh at my temples, but my thoughts were more muddled than ever.
I ghosted my way toward the pulpit where a man knelt, head bent low.
Glacier white hair fell across a smooth and youthful brow. While his expression remained impenetrable, it was impossible to ignore the shaking in his clasped hands. His lips moved in silent prayer. Palest gray eyes pointed toward the half crumbled statues of the Three Goddesses looming above him. Slowly his words loudened to an intelligible whisper.
Straining, I could just make out the solemn plea in his trembling voice.
“Goddesses, grant me the wisdom of your divine guidance. Bestow mercy upon me, for the crimes I have committed. Goddesses, please, deliver me the strength to defy my king.” He tasted the words on his tongue over and again.
My hand stretched toward him of its own accord. I trailed my fingers over the silky softness of his white coat before they slipped through him like water, the coldness returning to me with a vengeance. It spread up the length of my arm and buried itself deep in the hollow of my chest.
A gasping breath escaped our lips in tandem, and I was sent spinning through the dreamscape. Visions of the derelict church, the glittering ballroom, and my very own stars whipped past my vision.
I awoke, groggy and blinking hard against the darkness of the small hours. My body lay prone on a bed of frosted grass, low lying clouds further hazing my vision.
My cold fingers caressed the soft petals of the flowering bush above my head as I considered the dreams. They were becoming clearer, of that much I was sure. I was left with the impression of a twirling dress and golden eyes, a gilded circlet upon shining hair, pale snow in the rubble.
Emotion bubbled up in my throat—fear and wonder and hope—and I knew there was little else more dangerous. I could not quite grasp why, but I knew, deep within my gut, that these dreams offered me the barest taste of happiness, the object of my desires. They filled in the missing piece of my heart. Just as quickly, a sharpened blade carved them away, and the nightmares claimed me. But were they nightmares at all, I wondered, or had I simply woken to find myself utterly alone and with absolutely nothing?
