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Arluin raises his obsidian dagger. He plunges it through my father’s chest.
“This is for my father,” he hisses as he twists the blade.
Pain shoots through my heart. It feels asifhe has also stabbed me.
I scream loudly enough for Arluin to finally notice me. He turns and smiles. It isn’t a smirk or a sneer. Just an ordinary smile.
And that makes it even more terrifying.
“Reyna,” he says, stepping toward me. He holds out his bloodied hand.
I stumble back, tripping over my feet. But I don’t hit the street.
I fall through the darkness of my grief.
There is no end. I keep tumbling through the emptiness until it finally claims me.
I jolt awake, my murderous heart thundering in my chest. How it does not explode and end my life, I do not know. In that moment, as I am lingering between the state of sleep and wakefulness, I think it will.
My skin is soaked. Not with blood like in the nightmare, but with a cold sweat. My breaths come out like gasps as I desperately suck in all the air I can, my lungs starved from all my screams. The scratchiness of my throat tells me I wasn’t only screaming in my dreams.
Zephyr sits up and looks at me with his amaranthine eyes. They glow in the darkness. I stroke his head, and he settles back beside me, nestling in the silken sheets. I steady my breathing to the rhythm of my fingers running over his azure scales.
From across the room Mr. Waddles, the stuffed purple duck Arluin bought me for my sixth birthday, stares back at me. For several beats I glare at it, considering whether I should leap from my bed and throw it out the window. But I don’t. The images I just witnessed were nothing more than cruel dreams. Not memories. They weren’t real, and they never will be.
Arluin is gone, and I don’t know whether I will ever see him again, except for in my dreams. And I hope I never again dream of him, because I hate how my treacherous heart twists him into a monster that he is not.
Instead of hurling Mr. Waddles out the window, I murmurventrezand blow him into my lap. His lilac fur is patchy in many places.
As a child, I took him everywhere with me. That means he suffered much damage over the years, and some of his stitching has come loose. But I will never throw him away. Even when he is threadbare, I will still cherish him. He’s one of the few things I have left of Arluin, other than my memories.
And his locket.
I set Mr. Waddles on the pillow beside me and reach for the locket hanging from my neck. Since Arluin gave it to me, I haven’t taken it off. That was only three days ago, and yet it already feels like an eternity has passed. In one night, everything has changed. My entire world has been torn asunder.
Now my mother is gone. Never again will I be able to watch her swirl her aether-imbued paints across her palette and bring mystical landscapes to life. Never again will I be able to turn to her when I am hurt. I must spend the rest of my life without her.
That single thought is enough to send fresh tears streaking down my cheeks. Their flow is obstructed by the dried ones from when I wept in my sleep.
My fingers run across the locket, feeling the edges of the silver heart. It is warm from being pressed against my skin. I consider opening the locket and allowing the memory crystal inside to play. But I decide against it, knowing that I will be unable to bear listening to the promise we made to each other only three nights ago. That we would marry when we have graduated from the Arcanium.
Now that seems an impossible thought.
Even if Arluin is alive, he can never return to Nolderan. Not after his father murdered my mother, not after he wielded necromancy against the magi. I’m certain he planned it all along, to ensure Heston lowered his guard long enough to free me. And though he became a monster to save me, my father will never accept that—will never believe it. As soon as he sets foot inside Nolderan, my father will execute him where he stands. He will burn him with the same flames he used to destroy Heston.
And that, all of that, is only if he lives. Because I can’t be certain that he does. But if I allow myself to believe he is dead, then I will truly break.
I release the locket, and it falls back into the hollow of my neck. I lift Mr. Waddles and cradle him to my chest, lying my head back onto my pillows. My breaths are slow and steady, and the toy duck rises and falls to the same beat.
I gaze up at the shadowy ceiling, and once more, my nightmares arise. I feel a blade twisting through my heart, and I move Mr. Waddles to check if the phantom knife is there. But there is nothing. My skin is intact beneath my nightgown. It’s my grief which causes the sharp ache.
Realizing that my dreams will only further torment me, I slip from beneath the sheets and pace across the room to my cabinet. Zephyr doesn’t stir, having already fallen back asleep, and my footfalls are soft. He will probably wake soon and demand aether crystals. Maybe Eliya is right about him, but I appreciate the company.
I return Mr. Waddles to the top of my cabinet and grasp one of the entwined handles, pulling open the middle drawer. I find a satin robe inside, and I wrap the pale fabric around my nightgown, securing it with the thin belt. Then I pad out my room and head downstairs.
My fingers trail across the bannister as I descend the staircase and use it to support my weight. My body is fatigued, and each step is a great effort. It’s as though I haven’t slept for even an hour, but the waning light filtering through the stain-glass windows tells me it must have been several. And that’s assuming it is still Friday.
I find my father downstairs in the hallway. He is gazing up at one of my mother’s paintings. This one depicts Nolderan’s waves against a midnight sky, and a braided golden frame crowns the seascape. Her brushstrokes form dark waves of varying shades of deep blue and green, and sea foam powders the crests. The full moon shines high above, and the waves reflect the starlight. Like all of my mother’s artwork, it’s enchanted and appears more like a window than a painting. The sea rises and falls to a steady rhythm, and it laps against the shore. The pebbles stir as the waves meet them.
