Alaric shrugged. “He knows more than he lets on about Twinflames. He has spent most of his life researching them.”
“How could he possibly know we’d emerge as Twinflames?”
“The bloodlines,” he explained. “The three other Twinflames are direct ancestors of the Gaines and Pollard bloodlines.”
My heart pounded in my ears, the truth of what I was, what Alaric and I were, hitting me right in the chest.
“So my entire life has been mapped out before I even took my first breath?” I pulled my hand from his, stepping further away, the bond flaring painfully between us.
“Not necessarily.” He tried to reassure me. “We still get to have a voice in this.”
Alaric stepped towards me, but I waved him away.
“Yes, I do have a voice. I am my own person, and I will make my own decisions from here on out.”
I turned and ran up the stairs to my bedroom, ignoring Alaric’s concerned calls to me. I slammed the door, locking it behind me, knowing full well that if he wanted to get in, I’m sure he could use his Bloodwright abilities to do so. But he didn’t. I waited for what felt like forever, but he never came, never knocked on the door, or tried to break through it. I slid to the floor, pulling my knees to my chest.
I wasn’t just an ignorant, grieving girl anymore. I was a prophecy in chains—and I swore to myself and those I’d love that I would break them.
Chapter Nineteen
Sleep did not come easily. I tossed and turned, the bond between Alaric and me flaring painfully as if we were thousands of miles apart instead of only a floor away from each other. I knew instinctively that Alaric was struggling to sleep, just as I was, and the intrinsic part of the Twinflame bond urged me to seek him out, crawl into bed with him and find sleep nestled in his arms. The ache within my chest pounded excruciatingly at the thought.
Eventually, I drifted off to sleep, somewhere around midnight. But sleep did not mean rest. Instead, I fell into another dream. More like a nightmare.
I was once again in Central Park, standing in front of the Obelisk monument. The sky was dark with clouds, thunder and lightning booming in the distance. The wind howled and swirled around me, blinding me for a few moments before a dark, tall, hooded figure appeared between myself and the stone artifact I had become eerily familiar with over the last month. Whoever it was towered over me, their face hidden within the shadows of their black and torn robe. I knew I should be afraid. It was the only rational emotion for the scene, but instead, I felt a warm sort of familiarity and curiosity.
A deep voice, heavy with familiar sorrow and grief, bellowed from the shadowed figure.
Blood remembers. Blood returns.
I took a step forward, remembering the same words from a death echo I encountered in the New York Bloodwright chambers. “What does that mean?”
The figure tilted its head, seeming to study me as I stood before it. It didn’t seem to speak aloud, but its words echoed within my skull.
I bled to create what was torn from me. In you, that wound breathes again.
“Stop speaking in riddles!” I screamed in frustration. “What do you want with me? Why do you keep coming to me?”
Where one bloodline sought chains, you will bear wings. You are not prophecy’s pawn—you are its author. Yet, there are those who fear you and will call you a curse. There will be those who use you and will call you a weapon. But you must choose what you are.
“I don’t understand.” Tears stung my eyes as the wind continued to twist faster and faster, the violence of it threatening to knock me off my feet. But the hooded figure remained unmoved, only his cloak churning at his feet.
Her song hums beneath her skin, fragile as glass. If shattered, it will call the wrong kind.
“Are you talking about Sara-Kate?” I pushed my hair out of my face, keeping my eyes on the figure before me.
He nodded once and then pointed to something beyond my shoulder. I turned, horrified to finda Stonebound walking towards us with a body draped in his arms. Her long black braids rippled in the wind as they came closer and closer to where I stood. The sight knocked the air from my lungs, the bond inside me thrashing like it wanted to tear out of my chest and run to her.
She runs out of time.
“What do you want with her?” I screamed, turning back to the hooded figure, but it was already gone. I turned around and found the Stonebound carrying Sara-Kate was gone as well. The storm was upon me, and I jolted awake just as the lightning struck the Obelisk needle, shooting me backward.
I was screaming her name when Alaric burst through my door, knocking it off its hinges as he skidded to my side, the bond sparking between us so violently it rattled my teeth.
“Mari!” He reached out, pulling me into his arms, my tears wetting his bare chest. “You’re okay. It was just a nightmare.”
“No!” I croaked, pushing him away. “It was a warning. We need to go back. She’s in trouble.”
