I did. I mean, I felt as though I did, at least. I knew his voice… his presence… but seeing him in person and having to accept the realism of it all… well, it changed things. It changed the meaning of everything he hadsaid to me in my dreams. Something connected us, a string we couldn’t quite see, but we both knew it was there.
And it wasn’t the actual bond itself that scared me, but thewhyof it all.
Before I could even open the door, I felt a soft, cold hand land on my shoulder. I turned back to my mother, whose smile radiated kindness, but weighed too heavily with guilt.
“Promise me you’ll listen to him, okay? What he’s going to say…” she paused for a moment, then dropped her voice down to a whisper. “Count not the stars that shiver and fall. For one lights the path, and one ends it all.”
“What does that mean?” I asked her. A better question would be,why did goosebumps rise on my skin from hearing it?
She didn’t answer me. She just smiled and turned, taking Azrael up the large set of stairs behind us. Once she disappeared into the darkness, I finally opened the door and took my first step outside.
I was instantly greeted with a warm breeze, far different than the cold, brittle air inside the castle. It carried with it a faint, crisp smell—similar to the scent of burning wood. I had only been outside for a few seconds when I jumped from the sound of the wisping wind beside me. I scrambled back until I leaned against the door, hands struggling to find the handle behind me.
But I quickly recognized the black mist, swirling at the end of the steps until it morphed into a large, looming—beautifully handsome—figure.
“Do you…” I gulped loudly. “Do you do that a lot?”
He cocked his head and looked down at himself, as the last tendrils of shadows sunk back into his skin, then looked back up with a half-smile. “Sorry…” His laugh sounded almost nervous. “I guess everyone here is just so used to it… I didn’t even think about it.” He placed one foot on the step in front of him and offered his elbow to me. “I’d like to show you something, if that’s alright with you.”
Looking around at the empty space that surrounded us, I turned back to him with a challenging stare. “I don’t seem to have much of a choice, do I?”
I meant for it to come off as more of a joke, but the humor on his face died quickly as his piercing blue eyes sharpened on me.
“If there is one thing you can trust with me, Morrigan, it is that you willalwayshave a choice.”
I’ve definitely heard that before.
I considered saying it out loud, but something in his eyes had me believing his words. He meant them. He hadalwaysmeant them.
So does Kaiden,I thought.If I can just find a way out of here…
Hisgaze remained still as he waited, and I thought I noticed his teeth clench a little.
“I have a lot of questions,” I whispered, descending the steps and sliding a hand beneath his arm.
His body seemed to soften a little once I stood beside him, and his face relaxed again. “Let me answer them.”
After turning past the steps, we walked a little ways around the castle. It only took a couple of minutes, but I knew when we had arrived at what he wanted to show me. It was a garden.
A garden of daisies.
Hehad taken me here when I was close to breaking… He called it his escape.
“Why daisies?” I asked curiously. It’s not that they weren’t beautiful, but an entire garden full of them…
“My mother loved daisies.”
I froze. I was pretty sure the breath had actually frozen in my lungs as a strangled, prickling sensation assaulted the back of my neck, causing the hairs to stand straight. Why did that feel… familiar?
“I was tending to my garden when he approached me with a flower. A daisy. How did he know that those are my favorite?”
The diary.
It was Rosina’s diary, but that didn’t really matter because Rosina wouldn’t be…
Oh, gods…
“They took him. They took my baby. They took my baby.”
