Page 10 of Whisper of Nightmares

Euphemia’s hands clench into small coals that burn at her hips as she snarls, “I don’t care to speak to you about this.”

Euphemia pushes past him. But Conwal, damn him, races after her.

“Euphemia, please—” He steps between her and her sister again, this time drawing the attention of others nearby as well. Conwal’s hand wraps around her wrist, holding her where she stands. His touch, once the fiery passion of freedom, is now a cold snare. “Talk to me. Why are you avoiding me?”

Euphemia cannot play the docile flower in his presence any longer.

She jerks her arm out of his grasp. “Why am I avoiding you? Could it be that involving myself with you has brought me nothing but misery?”

“Misery?” he scoffs, a sneer contorting his face. He presses a hand to his chest. “What about my misery? What about the pain you’ve brought me? Every time I came to find you, you ran away, hiding in the shadows as if I were a monster without eyes to watch you fleeing from my very presence. I tried speaking to you for weeks. I tried offering my condolences. I wanted to be there for you—for your family—through everything. And you just—you pushed me away. You threw us away, and never gave me the chance to...” When his voice cracks, he trails off. Rolls his shoulders. Resumes control over his quaking throat. “You never gave me the closure I deserved.”

Whatever empathy she might have had for him disintegrates.

“The closure you deserved?” Her voice takes on a trembling, unhinged quality, and Euphemia’s only mildly aware of the shuffling of skirts approaching them. Feels the heat of curious gazes pressing upon them like branding irons.

Let them stare.

Euphemia steps closer, glaring into his eyes.

“You left me first, remember?” Something like confusion crosses his features, but Euphemia does not falter. Tears sting the back of her throat, making her lips quiver. “I waited for you. In that meadow, I waited. Just like you said to. But you never came. And now…”

The memory is more vivid than ever.

Euphemia, doe-eyed and desperate, waiting in a meadow to commit a sin with a boy who never even came. The nightmare appearing to her, and Euphemia thinking about the stories. Of flaming horses that stampede through towns in search of errant and wicked daughters. She knew she should be afraid. But the creature had been so beautiful, the flames more like wisps of clouds at sunset dancing down the creature’s neck and tail. She reached out to it wondering where the nightmares take the daughters, and how she could be the first to find out.

Then unexpectedly, her father had arrived. He had come looking for her when she hadn’t returned home from church with her sisters. And when he’d found her…

Euphemia still can’t shake the look of horror that flashed in his eyes the moment before the fire took him. Not horror at the creature. But at her. At knowing what it meant for her soul that the nightmare had come for her.

Ruinous.

Damned.

Cursed.

And maybe it isn’t entirely Conwal’s fault, but Euphemia has spent the last eleven months blaming herself for that night. For choosing to trust him. Waiting for him. Daring to hope. To desire. To need.

“Did you ever come for me?”

A muscle in his jaw ticks and Conwal swallows the lump in his throat. “No. I was afraid of what it might cost us both.”

Nodding to herself, Euphemia wishes she had held the same reservations. Things might have been a whole lot different now if she had.

To her surprise, there are no more tears lodged in her throat though. No more pain to be shed upon him.

“Goodbye, Conwal,” Euphemia says, turning her back on him, and a part of her former self that she’s ready to be rid of for good.

But Conwal is not ready to let her go.

“Euphemia, wait. Please,” he calls after her, following her through the ambling crowd. “Let me fix this. If that’s all this was about, me not turning up that night—I’m a different man now. I promise I would⁠—”

But as she turns, Euphemia comes face to face with an older woman she does not recognize. She’s about to blurt out an apology for bumping into her, when the woman gently places a hand on her shoulder and nudges her aside. She points at Conwal with something that looks a lot more like a dagger than a finger. “The young lady has spoken. Best be on your way now.”

Wide-eyed and shaking, Euphemia looks toward him. His hesitation is palpable and she braces herself for more pleas. More guilt. More shame.

But with the old woman as their unlikely mediary, Conwal slinks backward, and he doesn’t stop until he is lost to the crowd. Watching him go is like a door slamming in Euphemia’s chest. Even though it is a door she herself closed, the hollow thud that reverberates through her aches regardless.

Chapter 4