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That voice again, and now, Isla could see her through a rush of wind and sand. Daisy, or whoever had been using her that night, advanced towards her, her movements jerky. A puppet, and Isla was certain the woman with violet eyes from the artwork they’d found in the library was her master.
At that realization, Daisy became that nameless woman, her moon-white hair flowing behind her, a dark crown stark against its lightness. A shadow left in her wake, watching. Stuck in place.
Her words from that night played again amidst another chorus of battle—death and screaming—and this time, Kai wasn’t here to save her mind from whoever this was.
You should’ve fought harder. You will lose everything in this war, and he is the reason. It can only be us. It’s only ever been us.
The woman gripped her chin, her nails like spears, her touch like ice, and yet, Isla felt something colder press against her throat.
A dagger,thedagger that hummed and sang to her. And then, the woman spoke words Isla hadn’t remembered from that night before she brought the point of the dagger down over her heart.
If you fail, they all fall.
* * *
Isla awoke to an empty bed, though she didn’t remember falling asleep in it.
Her shaking fingers raked over silken sheets, heady with Kai’s scent but absent of his warmth as the fog of her nightmare cleared. She wrenched up, a gasp caught in her throat, and her body covered in a cold sweat as her hand dove under her pillow for the knife she kept there. The iron tang of blood stung her nose, but—
Not real.
With her heart thundering, she blinked, and steadily the raucousness of a battlefield, of that woman’s voice, faded to the faint chirping of songbirds, the metal tinge of blood turned…floral? And the vision of strewn corpses was replaced by their empty bedroom.
Empty.
Kai.
His side of the bed was bare, and even their duvet had somehow ended up peeled off her and lay on the floor. Adrien’s voice, his warning of Cassius’s desires crowed in her head along with the violet-eyed woman’s warning.
Death and war.
War and death.
If you fail, they all fall.
Just a stupid nightmare.
Where the hell was Kai?
The bond felt wrong. It always felt wrong. But right now…right now…
Isla moved, ice flooding her veins and her grip on her dagger—notthedagger that was currently with Jonah—so tight the hilt indented her palms. She had to find him, even if he was just downstairs. She needed to see that he was okay. Needed to get death out of her head. She had to—
Flowers.
Flowers were sitting on her bedside table right next to a framed photo crowned by an amethyst ribbon. Grayscale and grainy, in it, her mate grinned, those dimples on display as he wrapped an arm around her as she cupped his face in her hands, her lips smooshed against his cheek in a loving, playful kiss.
The ice melted, and Isla’s shoulders dropped from by her ears.
The photo was from their date night a couple of weeks ago—the first ever, unless one counted their times spent researching or spying or fighting—taken by a local photographer who’d snapped them while on a walk. Rather than asking him to trash the film—as Marin likely would’ve advised them, so they wouldn’t be seen as so “commonly”—they asked if he’d take another. Kai must’ve gotten it after it was developed.
Isla lifted the silver, branch-woven frame, a smile tugging her lips as her gaze shifted to the stunning, overwhelming bouquet of autumn blooms, hues of burgundy and orange, browns, and golds.
Her eyes honed on the red, dark as Io. Dark as...
Blood and death and war and—
No.
