Emory shielded herself from the shards of glass and sand and shadows. Pain tore through her, sending her falling to her hands and knees as she coughed up oozing black water and silvery blood. She feltsomethingmove inside her, pushing against her lungs, climbing up her throat. A vine emerged from her mouth. Barely able to breathe, she pulled at it and found narcissus and hollyhocks and orchids and poppies growing along it, the lunar flowers slowly turning to glass. She pulled and pulled but felt her bloodied hands slipping and the glass flowers breaking inside her, a thousand tiny shards cutting her up from the inside until she wanted todie.
She curled up on her side to do just that. Flowers sprouted all around her, as if growing from the shards of glass, multiplying and crawling along her skin, digging their roots in her. She would be buried under a mound of them, here in this nightmare version of Dovermere. And just when she couldn’t handle any more pain, shescreamed—glass shards cutting along the columns of her throat—as names were branded in bright silver on the skin of her bare arms. Travers. Lia. Jordyn. All the other initiates who’d lost their lives in Dovermere because of her. Lizaveta. Keiran.
Aspen. Tol. Orfeyi.
Romie.
“How does it feel,” a voice behind her said, “to wear your guilt on your skin?”
Sidraeus had appeared in the nightmare, not as his umbra self but in his true form. His features were cast in shadows, his outlinelimned in the soft light that emanated from the stars beyond. And his eyes held a hard cruelty that had Emory understanding this washisdoing.
Retribution for the pain she’d been putting him through thanks to the bargain she’d made.
“I may not be able to hurt you out there without hurting myself,” Sidraeus said, “but in the dark confines of your mind, you alone feel this pain.” The shadows around him seemed to spread toward her, climbing over her, twining with the lunar flowers to wrap around her limbs, to keep her rooted here. “I own the realm of nightmares, Tidecaller, and so in here,Iownyou. Remember that the next time you mean to threaten me.”
“Please,” she heard herself whimper as Sidraeus began to fade against the darkness.
A sardonic smile was the last thing she saw before he disappeared, his voice echoing inside her mind with grim finality.Sleep well.
She was being buried beneath lunar flowers and shards of glass and tendrils of darkness, and there was no way to stop it. Part of her knew none of this was real, that this was just another nightmare. But it wasn’t. This was Sidraeus in all his divine power, giving her a taste of just how strong he was, showing her exactly the kind of deity she was dealing with.
Emory closed her eyes, willing herself not to be afraid, trying to breathe through the pain so she could break free of it. This washermind, and she was in control of it, not him.
Light poured out of her, tearing through every dark thing, healing all the pain.
She woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat. Patting herself down, she found no shards of glass piercing her skin, no flowers embedded in her limbs, no names carved in silver on her arms.
None of it had been real. But the memory of the pain lingeredlike a bad taste in her mouth. For a second she felt small, weak, put in her place by this deity she had dared to mess with. She couldn’t fall back asleep and risk suffering the same pain all over again—and yet she refused to cower like this.
Before she knew what she was doing, she tore out of her bed and stormed out into the quiet corridor, shaking with righteous anger.
Deity or not, bargain or not, she would not let Sidraeus threaten her like that.
Emory tried not to panic as she searched the boardinghouse and couldn’t find him. What if it had all been a distraction, keeping her trapped in the worst nightmare imaginable while he set off to hunt down Atheia?
So quick to jump to conclusions. His smooth voice rang in her mind.I have to say, I’m impressed at how quickly you escaped that pleasant little nightmare.
Emory gritted her teeth.Get out of my head.
Stop inviting me in, then.
I did not—Where are you? I swear, if you’ve gone after her…
I haven’t gone anywhere.
She heard a soft sound coming from a room down the hall, the door left ajar so that a sliver of light fell on the corridor floor. She marched over to find an old office, by the looks of it, with a library full of dusty books. A lamp on the desk was turned on, dimly illuminating the room.
Sidraeus stood staring out a window toward the sea. Emory couldn’t help but take him in. The shock of thick, dark auburn curls that framed his face perfectly. The lean build of his body, and how the dark dress shirt he’d thrown on, rolled up at the sleeves, revealed muscled forearms. In the half-light, the runes on his arms and neck glimmered silver. They looked less raw than they did before, yet if he felt the pain of every single Eclipse-born, surely he must be suffering at all times to some degree.
He looked like someone who was trapped, longing to get out. Emotions played on his face that Emory didn’t understand. He must not have realized she was there, and seeing him so vulnerable reminded her of when he’d first appeared at the temple, such devastating pain on his youthful face. It doused some of her fury, leaving her uncertain.
“Contemplating leaving us behind?” she asked.
Sidraeus schooled his features but kept fixing the horizon. “You know I could find Atheia and end this all before the sun rises.”
“So why don’t you?”
“You mean aside from your constant threats of bodily harm?”
