Page 111 of Queen of War and Ruin

CALLING ME HOME

Someone is calling me home.

The voice is distant, faint, and sleep wraps around me like a heavy blanket. I almost want to ignore it, to stay where I am. But the voice comes again, tugging me back to the world. Somewhere, there’s a woman. Calling for me.

I shiver and try to think. It’s so cold.

Did I fall asleep in the meadow again? I push against the darkness clouding my senses, struggling through murky layers of dreams. Wind hisses and whistles around me, making the heavy heads of grass rustle in the darkness.

I must be in the meadow. I can almost see the last light of the setting sun shining across the jagged teeth of the mountains that loom above Dungal and the gap of Vederill Pass. I love coming here, watching the road, playing soldier and hero in the meadow. But sometimes I fall asleep, and a woman calls me home.

I shiver again.

That voice isn’t my mother’s. The meadow slips away, and the cold deepens, sinking into my bones.

Dungal is fallen. Gone. Wind hisses around me, but gods, whatever it’s rustling, it isn’t the grass that covered the meadow above the palace. I haven’t walked through that particular meadow in decades. For all I know, Vsenrog burned it with the rest of the palace. Just more ashes. More dust.

But the voice comes again, soft and warm. Calling my name.

Someone is calling me home.

Something deep inside of me cries out in response, clawing at the suffocating blanket of sleep. Images jumble together as I struggle to wake up; I can’t be sure if they’re memories or nightmares.

Broken glass. Silver chains that burn without flame. Screaming men falling into the vast, gaping maw of the earth.

And a woman.

A beautiful woman who was not afraid. A woman who held my gaze with her wide, dark eyes, her palm soft and warm against mine, our fingers laced together. A blood-red ribbon wrapped around our wrists, binding our lives together.

My skin crawls with strange energy. I think of silver chains, of the mad elf trying to hit me. My gut rolls, but this time, I don’t push the magic away.

I grab it. And I throw it back at the sleep smothering me, the darkness pressing against my consciousness. I push against sleep like I pushed against his attacks, again and again, my mind and body aching, burning, screaming with the effort.

My eyes fly open.

I gasp, sucking in breath. The room is dark, and I feel like I’ve just been punched in the gut. Moonlight traces delicate patterns across the distant ceiling. Wind rustles the heavy curtains.

And someone sobs beside me.

I turn toward the sound. My body is slow to respond, my muscles stiff.

“Lilias,” I whisper.

My wife stares at me with tears in her eyes, and my chest pinches. Is something wrong? Is she hurt?

I raise my hand and brush my fingers across the curve of her cheek.

“You’re so beautiful,” I tell her.

My voice sounds ragged, like a blade that’s been left out to rust. She turns to press her lips against the back of my fingers. Someone coughs in the darkness.

“We need to go,” a man’s voice says, from somewhere behind me.

I frown. Is that Petrys? What is he doing here?

Lilias nods, then turns away. I let my hand fall to her shoulder, then brush her hair. I remember that hair spread out across a pillow in a hayloft.

And I don’t even bother to try to stop myself. My hand closes around my wife’s shoulder, and I pull her toward me.