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I closed my eyes against the warmth seeping into my bones and was assaulted with more fragmented pieces of the dream. A ridge covered in shadow from the dark clouds. Thecrackof thunder in my ears. Blood on my hands. I snapped my eyes open, frost bloomed at my fingertips. My blood roared through my veins, spurred by the chaotic beating of my heart. I worked to calm myself, but I was so weak—so tired. Tiernan shivered again, pulling me in as tight as he could to share his body heat.
The stairway wavered in and out of focus as he carried me, and I flinched when he bent to pick up a torch from the ground. The light too bright for my eyes.
Strange, that I had been sleeping not long before. I couldn’t think of a time when I had ever been so tired. I longed for my bed. And the comfort I only felt in the company of all my men. I needed to see them all—that they were safe and unharmed—yes, I would see them safe, and then I would sleep.
I tried to draw on my Grace of fire but found ice at my core instead. The fire unable to penetrate the thick wall of it shrouding my heart.
Tiernan toldthe others what happened, though at my request, he left out the part about having found me distraught and cocooned in fear.No more secrets,I had promised them all.
Since sleepwalking was a new occurrence, and one they should all be aware of in case I walked myself right off the terrace or walked my way out the palace. But they didn’t need to know what I had dreamt.
Ihardly knew what I dreamt. Bits and pieces of the nightmare came back to me, but the bulk of it was lost to the dark recesses of my mind, as though the dream itself were a nocturnal creature, running from the light.
I don’t know what Alaric would have done to Tiernan if I hadn’t asked him not to punish my guardian. He wasseethingwhen Tiernan told him he’d fallen asleep, and I was glad I was there, still half in and half out of consciousness when Tiernan told his captain. It was clear as crystal to see how Tiernan already punished himself for his moment of carelessness, he didn’t need to be punished more. I was glad Alaric saw it too—orfeltit.
Kade held me loosely in his arms as we waited on the tiny island off the coast of the palace. It had been a day since Tiernan carried me all the way back to my royal bedchamber, careful to seal the passageway in the wall behind him and place my armoire in front of it. There was no way I’d ever been able to move it alone—no more sleepwalking in dark, forgotten passageways for me.
And it had been three days since the Wraith agreed to help us and search the seas for a possible threat against us. Now we waited for the Wraiths to return, under a moon that was on the fuller side of half.
“Where are they?” Alaric asked, “They should have been here by now. They’re late.”
“Maybe they forgot,” offered Tiernan.
Finn huffed, “Small chance of that—they are wise creatures, with memories that can go back hundreds of years. They would not forget the events of three nights past.”
Kade said nothing, but he sighed against me. I turned around in his arms, “Hey,” I said laying a hand on his cheek, “Are you alright?”
He gave me a wan smile and a small nod, “Of course. I’m fine.”
I swallowed back the burning in my throat. He had that look again, the same one he’d been wearing off and on since we returned to the palace. In his eyes I saw another Kade, a Kade that hung from a noose of his own making. Suffocating and in pain.
I opened up my senses, searching for the sixth sense Alaric had been training me to use. Sometimes I felt their emotions by accident, and sometimes, when I didn’t have the Grace activated, I felt nothing from them at all. He was teaching me to invite the emotions of others in, but only when I wanted to feel them.
And how to block them out when I didn’t.
I reached through my flesh andfeltKade with my Grace. I recoiled at the blow of his raw emotion. He was in anguish. On the verge of collapse. He hadn’t been the same since that day in the ruins of the old palace. I understood why, but I wouldn’t accept it. Alaric told me to leave him be—that he needed time to process what had happened and realize the truth on his own—that he had nothing to do with my death.
Gods!I was standing here, wasn’t I? What was there to mope about?
“You have to stop,” I said, forcing him to look at me, “Do you hear me?”
His dark brows pulled together, and his adams apple bobbed. “What—”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Liana—”
“Be quiet and listen,” I said, pulling him back when he tried to pull away, “You did nothing wrong. You were not in control of yourself—”
“I don’t think—” Finn warned, stepping in to break us apart.
I gave him a sharp glare that had him backing away instead. “I saw what happened, Kade. I was there. I know what Ricon did to you. Why can’t you see it wasn’t your faul—”
Kade set his jaw, “Oh and you think you know everything, do you?” He grabbed my forearms and glared into my eyes. His own golden eyes glowed, and I felt the heat of his Grace awakening where his skin touched mine. “You have no idea what it was like!”
“Then tell me.”
“I almost killed Alaric, and that was bad enough. I’d have never forgiven myself. He controlled me,yes,butIgave in to his will.Iwas not strong enough,” fury gleamed in his eyes and heat rippled off him in waves. I activated my own Grace of fire to keep from burning where his molten fingers circled my arms. “And then…Ikilledyou.”
