Page 106 of Realm of Dreams & Shadows

My whole body goes cold.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says, quietly.

“Here?” The word is like sand in my mouth. “What exactly is here?”

He looks around, as if seeing every inch of the acres upon acres that must make up this park. “A place to remember them,” he says. “All of them.”

Them.

I feel sick, and without realizing it, my knees buckle, and I’m suddenly on the ground. “The prophecy,” I say dully. “If Adric consummates a marriage to a Bride, then the barriers fall.” I meet his eyes. “You couldn’t risk that.”

Chase says nothing. He doesn’t need to. His expression tells me everything.

My throat feels thick. My head throbs. I don’t want to know this. I don’t want to know any of it.

And yet it’s like a scab. I can’t help but pick at it, even knowing that it’s going to bleed. “Who is Sir C.H. Nase?”

He looks at me. “The founder of this place.”

I swallow, my mouth unnaturally dry. The founder’s name is an anagram, of course. Chasen.

I hug myself, pushing the words out past the tears that clog my throat. “One tree for every Bride.”

He nods. “For every Bride since this place was founded. The ones before are honored only in my memory.”

I look around, equal parts freaked out and humbled. “Why? Why this place? Why 1671?”

He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Because I had to do my duty. And eternity is a very long time. That was the year when I couldn’t stop the bleeding—my bleeding, albeit metaphorical.”

He looks at me, but I say nothing. After a moment, he turns away, and it’s no longer me he’s speaking to, but the ghost of every Bride here. “Without this place, I knew that I would surely lose my mind.”

I slide down to sit at the base of a tree. I draw my knees to me and hug my legs, feeling as lost as a child.

“How did you find me?”

“I woke up,” I say to the ground. “I followed you.” When I finally lift my head, I see that his is tilted, his eyes narrowed a bit, as if studying me.

“He told you.” His voice is hard-edged and ice-cold. “You saw him tonight. After we⁠—”

“I don’t have control of my dreams,” I snap. “And right now it’s you in the doghouse.”

“Fair enough,” he says, looking duly chastened. “But you do have control over your dreams. Or you should.” He draws a deep breath. “Or did you want him to come to you?”

“Don’t you dare,” I say, my voice low and hard. “Don’t you dare make this about Adric. This is about you. All this time, and you never told me. Dammit, Chase, don’t you get it? For four years, I’ve thought of you as my protector. And now⁠—”

That’s when it hits me.

“My mother.” I tilt my head up, looking at him through eyes flooded with tears. “You killed my mother.”

“Yes.” That single word seems to carry all the misery in the world.

I wipe away a tear. “You’ve been lying to me every minute of every day.” I climb to my feet, needing to leave. Needing to get the hell away from this man.

“Cora, please.”

I stumble backward as he reaches out for me, then trip over a stone and land on my ass. He’s beside me in an instant, and I flinch, pulling into myself and looking up at him as something hard and cold cuts through me. “Get the fuck away from me.”

“I won’t hurt you. Dammit, Cora, you know I won’t hurt you.”