Wait, what? Was that another proposal? Did I miss it again?
He does something very naughty with my ass, and I can’t hold back anymore as I come around him.
Tempos, or maybe a turn or two later, I find myself buried beneath the comforter, my body curled around his. I sigh with contentment.
He holds me closer. “What am I going to do with you?”
“All the things, hopefully.”
He laughs, and all seems right in the realm. Well, for the night, anyway. I’m sure there will be a fresh wave of chaos waiting for us on the other side of that wall. But for now, I nestle in close and sigh.
Finally, we are all together in our hearts. Nothing is stronger than love. Not an army of Idols or a tomb of fate.
I’m rewriting destiny, and it includes me living happily ever after with my four knights. Gwyneth... needs an upgrade. But one problem at a time, and all that.
“Sleep,” Nash drawls. “I can hear you thinking.”
“Only if you dream of me and I dream of you.”
“Deal.”
I smile and give into sleep.
But it’s not knights I dream of. It’s war.
Chapter Thirty Two
Daphne
Idream of ruin.
Not the kind that whispers of the whimsical and forgotten, where ivy curls like lazy fingers around grand castles and the forest is alive with a welcoming wonder. No, this ruin is violent. Fresh. Broken. A warning.
The sky is all wrong. It hangs too low, bruised purple and split with veins of molten gold, as though the Idols have cracked it open and something furious is trying to claw its way through. The air tastes of ash and salt and something metallic that coats my tongue and refuses to leave.
Blood. Old and young. But none of it is spilled willingly.
I was promised naughty dreams of knights. This is not what I signed up for. I do not recommend.
I stand in the middle of a battlefield that stretches farther than I can see. The ground is scorched black, jagged pieces of rock cutting into my bare feet. Bodies lie scattered like discarded dolls. Some are whole, some are not, while others are still moving.
I swallow, throat tight, and spin to take in the scene behind me. Dozens of banners snap in the howling wind, each one bearing symbols I don’t recognize. And yet, I do. I know them, not through classes I paid no attention to, but through something deeper. Older. Knowledge I was born with.
A black banner with a gold crown split in two. A green serpent devouring its tail. A tower against a stormy sky, crumbling from within.
My pulse stutters. “This isn’t real.” I will that sentence into reality, because that’s what one says in a nightmare. It’s a rule. “This is just my brain being dramatic as it tries to understand the forces around me.”
I’d be very surprised if I ended up sounding convincing.
The wind carries whispers, soft as breath against skin. They rumble, growing louder until they are no longer whispers but a screeching chorus that claws inside my skull. A finger twitches first. Then a leg jerks, the bone grinding against stone. A head lolls to the side with a wet, sickening crack, eyes snapping open to stare at nothing.
One drags itself forward, nails splitting and leaving a macabre bloody trail as they scrape against the scorched ground. Another pushes up on arms that bend the wrong way, joints crunching as though they’ve forgotten their purpose. Torn flesh hangs loose.
My blood turns to ice, and I back up. “Right, that’s not at all creepy.”
One of them turns and looks at me. I freeze, squinting at him. There’s something… I know him. I don’t know how, but I do. His face is wrong—half-burned, half-shadow—but the shape of it is familiar, and it tugs at my chest like a memory just out of reach.
His mouth opens. “Harbinger.”
