Fear contorted the man’s expression, but he didn’t run. “Test me, Queen Olyssa,” he shouted, his voice almost lost in the wind. He raised his arms as if reaching for me. His wedding band caught the sunlight.
Thanks to the reports I’d gotten, I knew that he was dying. But seeing him, compassion had yanked me from my battle haze. Death clung to him with a tight grip, refusing to loosen its hold. I was his last chance to live.
There, in the moment, I let myself forget how much I despised the process. Stopped caring about the consequences of my actions. In the dream, I circled him, just like the wraithlings circled their field, hungry and relentless. Fire boiled in my gut, spilling power into my veins.
“Please,” he cried.
And I did it. I gave in to the urge to do exactly what he’d requested and test him, opening my mouth and unleashing his worst nightmare.
His screams, oh, his screams. They pierced the mountaintop as the inferno engulfed him, ceasing only when his body blackened and fell.
I didn’t stay. Didn’t give him a proper human burial or show a moment of remorse. Like the monster I had been, Icollected the chains and left, too ashamed to face the horror of killing another Locke.
This time, I couldn’t leave. I was trapped in Taron’s memory. He sprang from the shadows and crouched at his father’s side. He was trembling, mute with grief. How had I never noticed him?
“I know you told me not to follow you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Come back. Please! I’m sorry,” young Taron repeated. Little noises of mourning left him, but they soon became full-bodied, keening sobs as he begged the corpse to wake up, to fight, to come back. His sorrow was a living thing. Loud, raw, shattering.
And I watched, wanting to tear the dream apart with my bare hands. To wake and never see this memory again. But I couldn’t look away. His pain carved through me with the strength of dragonsteel.
I flinched, staggering back, but there was nowhere to run. Not from him. Not from what I’d done. From realization. Of course he hated me. Of course he had betrayed me with the shifter king.
For the first time, I saw myself as Taron had. A terror forged in memory.
A cry tore from my throat, and the mountains vanished. I blinked in real life, my breath ragged as the dream dissolved like smoke. Sunlight blinded me. It was morning, I realized. Frowning, I scanned. . . the first thing I saw was Taron. Shirtless. Sweating. Vibrant.
He stood in a shaft of golden light, splitting logs with fluid precision, each strike producing an echoing drumbeat. His muscles flexed with every swing, and a dark lock of his hair stuck to his forehead. He was in the middle of a speech, unaware that I’d woken.
“—going to be okay. My tonic is working. You’re healing.Understand, Lyssa? You’re healing.” His low, gruff voice carried the weight of command. “You might or might not be happy to hear I’m healing, too. Don’t worry. I stored the flower with the crystal. We need only one more ingredient. One. Then we can break the bond. You’re to wake up. And when you do… we’ll talk. Understand?” he repeated.
Lyssa. The nickname burned parts of me I’d long thought dead.
I lay wrapped in soft blankets inside a makeshift lean-to he must have built; the shelter set between two trees. We remained in the forest. We were past the ice, but still in the cold, yet I was warm and dry, my strength returning. Despite my physical progress, my insides struggled. I felt hollowed out. The anger and resentment I’d clung to like armor had vanished. As if the dream had scraped them from my bones. Only sorrow endured.
Watching him now, his ferocity struck me anew. This man was beautiful in a way that hurt. And resilient. But most of all… haunted. A warrior forged in fire—like me. In another life, we probably would’ve been friends. If not much, much more.
Maybe I’d made a noise. Or perhaps he was just attuned to me. Whatever it was, he stopped, axe midair, his gaze zooming to me.
“You’re awake,” he said, lowering the weapon.
I tried to speak, but my throat hadn’t yet finished repairing itself. I tried to smile next, wishing with every fiber of my being that the pull between us had lessened. Instead, it had only deepened, growing roots in my marrow. Though I wanted so badly to rise, to walk to him and hold him, if only to soothe the boy he’d been, exhaustion won, and sleep pulled me under its tide again, merciful and merciless all at once.
When next I woke, everything had changed. I lay draped over a furnace of velvet flesh and hard strength, wrapped in Taron’s pine and cedar scent. Mmm. I stretched lazily—and the bed shifted.
I froze, my lids flying open. Stars blinked above me in an ink-dark sky. A fire crackled nearby, flames casting amber light over me…and the man beside me.
Gasping, I lifted my head. Taron lay still, watching me. His gaze wasn’t cold. It burned.
“Hello,” I rasped.
“You are healed?”
“I am.”
“Good.” He rolled me beneath him in one swift motion, caging me with his body.
His heavier weight pressed me down, solid and unyielding. I could have bucked him off, but I didn’t want to. No, I melted into him, every nerve sparking.
His expression was fierce and storm-dark as he intoned, “Before, you asked what other memories I’d seen. I dreamed of Leopold’s death. I felt your heart break as he burned. Witnessed the way you held what remained of him afterward, like he should wake at any moment. How you wept as the wind stole his ash.” His voice cracked, a fragile edge to it. “I felt your shame. Your guilt. How it never let you go.”
