I staggered back, clutching my burnt hands. “Who are you? Where is my brother?”
He did not answer. His form wavered, thinning before vanishing on a breath of cold.
Panic clawed at my ribs.This isn’t real.I bit the inside of my cheek. Pain bloomed fast, metallic and jagged… and wrong. Awake, but… not.
Warmth flooded my mouth—hot, thick, iron-salt. Blood spilled down my chin in dark ribbons I could not swallow fast enough. It soaked the fabric of my nightgown, blooming like a ruin.
The room tilted. Shadows pooled. The air tasted like iron.
“Hayat!” My voice broke. He filled the doorway, firelight gilding his skin. For a breath, the sight was solid. The edges wavered, but my body felt nailed in place.
“Aurelia—what is it? You’re bleeding.” Far too calm for the flood I felt.
“There is someone here,” I choked. “Pretending to be Aeryn. I went to Nyxarra for Etherblooms and something—something happened?—”
The air congealed, slow as syrup. The dream pressed hands over mine.
“It’s fine,” Hayat said, stepping closer, too close. “You’re fine. I’m here.” His thumb skimmed my bottom lip. A murmured prayer to Kaerani rolled warm over my mouth, and the bleeding stopped.
“Wait—” The word came thin as thread.
“Aeryn is fine,” he soothed. “He will wake before our games begin.”
Our games.Laughter and warmth flared—wrong. Like a memory that belonged to a stranger.
His fingers tilted my chin. The edges of his face warped before settling. He leaned in and dragged his tongue slowly across the red on my cheek.
“Hayat—what are you?—”
He did not answer. His hands found my waist and lifted me to the table. “You know I care for you, Aurelia,” he murmured, stepping between my knees. His palms framed my face. He kissed my cheek, almost tender.
This isn’t real.I pressed my hands to his chest, meaning to push him away, when teeth, too sharp to be human, grazed my neck.
The sting came first—clean, searing. The sweepof his tongue followed. Terror flared. Every instinct begged to fight, but my body betrayed me. I clutched his shirt and pulled him closer.
He rocked forward, pressing into me—then stilled.
“Tsk, tsk,” he chided, voice colder now. Not Hayat at all. “Is that how good girls behave?”
His form undulated and dissolved—smoke unwinding into the air, just like Aeryn.
Fear broke the stasis. I bolted to my room and dropped to my knees beside the bed, scrabbling for the small wooden box carved with our family crest—twin serpents: one pale as bone with bead-black eyes, the other a deep green, eyes the color of fire.
The onyx dagger lay within. A relic. One I should have turned over with the others. Some pieces you keep, even when the keeping costs you.
I caught the hilt. Its weight grounded me. The walls around me stretched like something inhaling as I ran outside.
The house loomed behind me, foreboding and oppressive, its familiar lines warped too tall, too close, as though the world had tugged it out of proportion. It had once been beautiful. Vines of Sangre Miel, their deep-red blooms defying the frost, twisted through the iron railings of the courtyard gate, their beauty both mesmerizing and ominous. The flowers clung with a ferocity that made me uneasy, their delicate petals seeming out of place in a season so cold and unforgiving.
My breath puffed out in shallow billows, the air suddenly colder. The sun began to dip behind the treeline at an unnatural speed, shadows creeping across the courtyard. A fog rolled in, thick and heavy, carrying with it an unnatural chill.
A silhouette stepped out of it.
I froze. The shape sharpened as it drew near, predatory, unyielding. The vines shuddered.
I tightened my grip on the dagger until the steel bit. Ragepushed me forward. If this was the thing that had taken Aeryn, I would end it before it took anything else.
I ran as fast as I could toward the shadow, my heart pounding in my chest. My breath rasped in uneven bursts, each step falling heavy against the silence that surrounded me. The dagger in my grip felt like a lifeline—a desperate extension of my will. With a sharp intake of air, I drove it forward, striking deep into the left side of the figure’s chest.