It had claimed them all.
Dark pools of blood seeped between the cracks in the ancient stone, while more crimson streaks splattered the walls, pillars, and shattered furniture. The metallic scent hung thick in the air, mingling with smoke and the faint remnants of burned wood.
It had to be a dream.
Or more like a nightmare.
Only, this was different than any nightmare she’d had before. There were no hazy edges or dreamlike qualities. Every detail was unnervingly sharp, from the rough texture of the stone floor beneath her to the sickening smells that turned her stomach.
It didn’t feel like she was imagining it.
It felt like she’d somehow stepped into another place…another time.
It felt terrifyingly real.
“It is,” Mordecai said as he walked up beside her. “Or it was.”
Glancing up at him, she frowned when she noticed he wasn’t wearing the prison uniform she’d grown accustomed to seeing him in. Instead, he was dressed in elegant purple and black robes with silver treading and embroidering at the collar, richly tailored in the regal style favored by the gods.
On the other hand, she was still dressed in the silver uniform and boots she’d been issued upon her arrival at the prison. The only difference was that her gloves were missing, leaving her hands bare. He reached down and offered a hand to help her to her feet. Standing up, she immediately leaned against him, unsure if she was seeking comfort or giving it.
“This is…was my home,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “I think I pulled you into my dream somehow.”
“Is this part of our mating bond?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, it’s possible, but we haven’t been mated long enough to fully merge our minds yet. When you shared your magic with me, you unblocked my own. I’ve always had the ability to astral project and dreamwalk, but I’ve never been able to take anyone with me before.”
“So, we are in your dream?”
He nodded. “This is what happened the night my family was murdered. We were celebrating the year’s end, and I was late arriving since I had been gathering gifts to give to my family. I always had a bad habit of putting it off until the last minute. By the time I got home…this is what I walked into.”
He paused and pointed toward a beautiful female on the ground.
“This was my mother. She is a gentle soul who loves embroidering and singing to the flowers she tends in the garden.And that is my little brother. He hurt his arm when he fell out of a tree he shouldn’t have been climbing yesterday.”
Her heart aching for him, she reached out and gently slipped her hand into his. The moment their fingers touched, he laced their fingers together and held tight to her like an anchor as he walked her through his personal nightmare.
She noticed how he kept mixing the past with the present. His words blurred the line between memory and reality, as if his mind refused to accept that his family was really gone. To him, they still existed in some sheltered corner of his mind, frozen in time, and he clung to that illusion with heartbreaking determination.
Silent tears slid down her cheeks as she accompanied him, and she tried to wipe them away covertly without disturbing him. Mordecai paused beside each body, speaking their names with quiet reverence and sharing small pieces of who they had been. The uncle who could fix anything with his hands, the aunt whose laughter was always a little too loud. The older brother who trained hard to become a warrior, and another who had been learning how to lead once their father stepped down.
And then there were Mordecai’s friends who would have followed him into hell itself. Each story painted a picture of lives that had once been vibrant and full of hope, making their loss even more devastating. There was nothing she could say or do that would lessen the weight of the sorrow he carried.
Instead, she simply listened.
It wasn’t just a graveyard of the dead. It was the shattered remnants of a world long gone. And with every memory he entrusted to her, she felt another piece of his grief settle heavily into her own heart. She tightened her grip on his hand, offering the only comfort she could, silently letting him know that he would never have to walk through this nightmare alone again.
When he got to his father’s body, his voice finally broke. “He was more than a warlord and the head of our family. He ruled the entire domain with care and consideration. People loved him. They trusted him. That’s why I can’t figure out who would have done this and why. I realized it must have been someone he knew or—”
“It was your father’s friend, Kaiser Corvus,” she said, earning his full attention. “I know through what I saw with my secret-extracting ability the first time you touched me. I see more than just a memory. I am able to see the true events as they happened, without bias or subjectivity. He betrayed your family, along with a handful of warriors who secretly followed him. The food was laced with some sort of poison to weaken everyone first, so there was no chance for anyone to fight back.”
His hands squeezed hers so tight it hurt, but she didn’t protest. Catching himself, he eased up on the pressure and led her over to a broken window as if breathing in some fresh air might clear away some of his pain.
“Kaiser was my father’s second-in-command and a trusted family friend. He had been injured that night and was one of the only people to speak on my behalf during my trial. After I was sentenced, he fought for the right to rule over our domain in my father’s memory,” he said in disgust. “He fucking claimed he wanted to keep it safe until I could figure out a way to prove my innocence.”
“We’ll make him pay.”
His shoulders slumped as if a heavy weight had been piled on them. “Too late. He was killed over a century ago. I guess you could call it fitting that he was betrayed by his own cousin. The entire area has been fought over ever since. Now, that domain is only a mere shadow of the glory it once was.”
