Unease prickled at the back of Cedric’s neck. He opened his mouth, ready to ask—to demand—that Alouette tell him what was happening.
Then he saw it.
Thatched roof. Vine-covered white walls. Blue door. A single tall cherry tree growing in front, a low swing hanging from its branches.
A panicked breath caught in Cedric’s throat. This place...He knew this place.
Alouette went still at his side. “Welcome home, Cedric.”
21
BLOOD & IRON
ELYRIA
The entire world was darkness.
Not the comfortable, starlit dark of night.
Not the warm black that graces one’s vision from behind closed eyelids.
An endless void that crawled into Elyria’s skin, through her bones, permeating every inch of her being.
Herdarkness.
She strained her senses, trying to get a feel for, well, anything. She felt solid ground beneath her feet. Smelled iron and smoke in the air. Heard the soft patter of rain hitting dirt.
Where had the Crucible sent her?
And where washe?
She pushed that thought away as quickly as it came, refusing to give the nagging sense of worry any more space in her mind. Cedric was likely back in that stony chamber, gloating over how right he’d been to discourage her from touching the mirror. Or perhaps he was stewing with annoyance, irate that she’d figured out how to move into the next phase of the trial—even if it was by accident.
The thought very nearly brought a smile to her lips.
But the suffocating blackness would not allow even that small comfort. Shadows closed in tighter. They gripped her, clung to her, held her, tore at her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t?—
The dark shattered. And she was no longer in a lightless prison but standing in an all too familiar place.
Her stomach twisted as the acrid scent of smoke, sweat, and iron grew stronger, filling her nostrils, burning her eyes.
No. Not here.
Castle Lumin towered over her, a sentinel at Elyria’s back as she stood in front of the gatehouse, rain falling in sheets, slicking down the loose strands of periwinkle that had come free from her braid. It dripped into her eyes as she stared straight ahead, refusing to turn, refusing to look. She didn’t want to see what she already knew was there.
The rest of the castle garrison, brave men and women—her friends, her comrades—littered the blood-soaked earth in front of her, at her back, at her side.
Not again.
Some of the soldiers groaned, tried to move, tried to stand. Others clutched at the blood-red crystal arrows jutting from their chests and thighs, trying to stem the bleeding from thesanguinagiweapons. More of them were utterly still, expressions vacant, eyes unseeing.
This isn’t real. This is a memory,she told herself.Just a memory.
Pain lanced her side—sharp, searing. She looked down to see the red shaft of an arrow protruding from her hip. Felt the wet warmth blooming, sticky on her fingers as she drew her hand away from the wound.
It felt real.
A memory shouldn’t bleed,she thought.
