I chuckled lightly. “Well, I’m not so sure you did a good enough job on some of them. I was able to hide in one of them with Azrael.”
Tristan’s hand tightened around mine, but he didn’t respond. I found it odd, but as we entered the cave, he pulled me closer to him. “Stay beside me, it might get slippery.”
Slippery?
My confusion was quickly answered after a few minutes of walking. I felt smooth, wet stones beneath my feet, but could only see a short distance ahead from the slight glow in Tristan’s eyes.
“So… is that why you have been acting so…weirdlately?” I asked, trying to sound casual without exposing just how nervous I was. Dream or not, I had moaned his name, and he… The way he had looked at me…
“I’mthe weird one?” he chuckled, easing some of the tension. “You haven’t been able to even look at me. You really know how to stroke a man’s ego.”
I cringed a little, realizing how true his words were. “I don’t think that’s completely fair. At least you were aware. You could have told me.” I looked around, trying to figure out where he was taking me. “What is this place, anyway?”
“Another escape. One I’ve wanted to show you since I first found out about you. Just a little farther…”
Suddenly, the space around us brightened as we approached what looked to be a spring inside the cave. The water glistened brightly, illuminating the small space around us. It was so beautiful.
“I found this spring a long time ago and made some minor adjustments.” He tugged my hand, pulling me closer to the water. “Come, this is what I wanted to show you.”
We stopped at the edge of the spring, the warm water slowly rising to meet my bare feet. I didn’t know how to explain it, but the water felt like silk—thicker, but somehow… cleaner.
“When I first felt you, it was during a nightmare. You were running through darkness, unable to see anything around you. What youdon’tknow is that it wasmydream.”
When I turned to look at him, I found him already gazing at me.
“Somehow, you wandered into it. At first, I was incredibly confused. Then, I felt something—something familiar. And as if someone had whispered in my ear, your name sat on the tip of my tongue. It was as though I had known you forever.”
I couldn’t decipher the look in his eyes, or what it meant, but something inside of me pulled toward it. I had the feeling that my eyes conveyed the same thing to him.
“I told you that you would always have a choice with me, and I meant that, Morrigan. So, when I tell you this…Just know that it doesn’t change anything, okay?”
“How did I end up in your dream? How canyouseemine?” I asked him, my voice causing a slight echo throughout the cave.
“In some of my mother’s books that she left for me, she always referred to our power as light. Like we had thisother beinginside ofus that granted our abilities. Think of it as a soul for mortals.” He took a deep breath and looked up.
Instinctively, my eyes followed his, and I gasped when I saw the ceiling above us. All of the shimmering lights in the water reflected upward, causing the false image of stars twinkling above us. “Gods…” I whispered. “You… You made this?”
“You used to think about the stars a lot when Maeryn moved you to the attic. So, I asked Mara about them. After she told me, I came here and tried my best to recreate it.”
I looked down at him, watching him stare at the stars. The light glimmered against his face, making him look otherworldly, and even more breathtaking than he already was.
“Sometimes, you would daydream as you stared out of your window, counting the stars. So, when I would feel your presence, I would come out here, too. I wanted to know what you were searching for.”
“A choice, Tristan,” I told him, and his eyes lowered to mine. “I wanted a choice. Tell me why I stumbled into your dream. Why you were about to talk to me, show me things. Why I… Why I’ve started hearing some ofyourthoughts as well.”
He pressed his lips together at that. “Yeah… I’ve caught that a few times. I wasn’t surprised. Ever since you arrived, everything just feels… heightened. Out of control.”
He turned his entire body to face me, and the anticipation was killing me. It couldn’t bethatbad. It couldn’t be worse than being created as a blood whore for seven men. Actually, scratch that.Please don’t be worse than that.
“The night my father came for me, he tried to kill me. Hethoughthe killed me, but something happened. Call it fate; call it whatever you want, but that light—that soul… All he did was break it. It split into two halves that night.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know how it happened. I suspect Minerva may have had something to do with it when creating the prophecy, but… that other half…” He lifted his hand slowly until it brushed my cheek, sending a wave of shivers down my spine. “May I?”
I nodded, afraid that if I said anything, he might hear the nerves in my voice.
When his skin touched mine, I felt a strange rush of energy course through me. His eyes began to glow brighter, and then I felt heat crawling down my arms. I looked down to find that my veins had begun to glow a bright orange hue, like liquid fire. The moment the lines of light met his face, the black markings on his skin started to… retreat. Slowly, they crawled away from his face, and the clouds in his other eye cleared away, revealing a beautiful blue shade that matched the other one.
