his arms. “But I still have a bad feeling about this.”
Rain’s bad feeling left Ellysetta just as unsettled as he was. It took her a while to get to sleep, and when she finally did, she dreamed. Images flickered across her mind. Charred and broken stone, shattered glass, the ruins of a building. A dark hole ripped into a wall. Stairs leading down into a windowless room. A sconce lit, revealing a very large, dark oval mirror perched on a column of stone.
As Ellysetta watched, the dark oval of the mirror began to glow with silvery-blue light, just like the phosphorescent mirror pool at the heart of Grandfather Sentinel in Elvia. The surface seemed to ripple, and a face rose from the glowing depths. A Fey face, strong and stern, with paleblond hair and eyes like deep green wells.
A strange tug of recognition pulled at her. The Fey in the mirror was a stranger… but something about him struck a deep chord, as if she should know him—or once had. She reached out a hand, but before her fingers could brush the mirror’s surface, the mirror dissolved. The dreamview became a white blur.
When it focused again, she was walking in a grim, denuded landscape. The glare of a harsh white sun blazed down on a world leached of all color, alien and yet somehow still familiar. A river flowed in the distance, its surface still and black—the Heras. The tumbled ruins of a stone fortress lay scattered before it. From the shape of the hills and the destroyed fortress, she recognized the ruins as Kreppes.
The ground beneath her feet was covered in a thick layer of what she first thought were broken shards of sun-bleached shells. She stumbled on a rounded bulge hidden beneath the shards, and pain darted up her leg as her ankle twisted beneath her weight.
Ellysetta nearly fell to her knees, but she managed to catch her balance. She turned to see what had tripped her, and her stomach clenched with a sudden surge of nausea.
The rounded bulge was a skull… a man’s skull.
White teeth grinned in a macabre smile beneath the gray-white shadows of empty eye sockets.
She took a stumbling step backward, away from the skull, and the shells beneath her feet crunched and snapped. Only then did she realize these were not stones, nor shells. They were bones. Shattered as if by some god’s terrible hammer. Bleached white and brittle by the sun.
The remnants of what had once been living, breathing people.
Thousands of people.
And in the center of that barren landscape, upon that graven sea of the dead, Ellysetta stood alone. Garbed in scarlet from head to toe like a splash of blood on the snow-white field.
And she knew, with a certainty she could not explain, that every person whose shattered skeleton lay beneath her feet had died because of her.
Ellysetta’s eyes opened. The brittle white boneyard of her dream became the night-dark ceiling of the room she and Rain shared at Kreppes. She could hear the low voices of her quintet just outside the bedroom door.
She sat up, and out of habit turned to check the Sentinel blooms beneath her pillow. The flowering sprigs were still in place, as they had been every night since leaving Elvia. Not a Mage-sent dream then.
Beside her, Rain stirred. His hand flexed against the bed-sheets, seeking her.
Shei’tani.
The sleepy call drifted from his mind. Not Spirit, merely an unchecked thought.
She brushed back the silky spill of hair that feathered across his brow.
“Las, kem’san. Ruliath.”
Peace, my love. Go back to sleep. A push of encouraging Spirit accompanied the words, a gentle weave that she laid upon him without guilt.
He was so weary. The fact that her dream had woken her but not him was proof of his utter exhaustion. He had been so strong for so long, but his vast power was beginning to flag. Madness—both from the trauma of war and from their uncompleted truemate bond—was chipping away at the powerful barriers that held back the torment of his overburdened soul. Yesterday, his thoughts
Rain’s bad feeling left Ellysetta just as unsettled as he was. It took her a while to get to sleep, and when she finally did, she dreamed. Images flickered across her mind. Charred and broken stone, shattered glass, the ruins of a building. A dark hole ripped into a wall. Stairs leading down into a windowless room. A sconce lit, revealing a very large, dark oval mirror perched on a column of stone.
As Ellysetta watched, the dark oval of the mirror began to glow with silvery-blue light, just like the phosphorescent mirror pool at the heart of Grandfather Sentinel in Elvia. The surface seemed to ripple, and a face rose from the glowing depths. A Fey face, strong and stern, with paleblond hair and eyes like deep green wells.
A strange tug of recognition pulled at her. The Fey in the mirror was a stranger… but something about him struck a deep chord, as if she should know him—or once had. She reached out a hand, but before her fingers could brush the mirror’s surface, the mirror dissolved. The dreamview became a white blur.
When it focused again, she was walking in a grim, denuded landscape. The glare of a harsh white sun blazed down on a world leached of all color, alien and yet somehow still familiar. A river flowed in the distance, its surface still and black—the Heras. The tumbled ruins of a stone fortress lay scattered before it. From the shape of the hills and the destroyed fortress, she recognized the ruins as Kreppes.
The ground beneath her feet was covered in a thick layer of what she first thought were broken shards of sun-bleached shells. She stumbled on a rounded bulge hidden beneath the shards, and pain darted up her leg as her ankle twisted beneath her weight.
Ellysetta nearly fell to her knees, but she managed to catch her balance. She turned to see what had tripped her, and her stomach clenched with a sudden surge of nausea.
The rounded bulge was a skull… a man’s skull.
White teeth grinned in a macabre smile beneath the gray-white shadows of empty eye sockets.
She took a stumbling step backward, away from the skull, and the shells beneath her feet crunched and snapped. Only then did she realize these were not stones, nor shells. They were bones. Shattered as if by some god’s terrible hammer. Bleached white and brittle by the sun.
The remnants of what had once been living, breathing people.
Thousands of people.
And in the center of that barren landscape, upon that graven sea of the dead, Ellysetta stood alone. Garbed in scarlet from head to toe like a splash of blood on the snow-white field.
And she knew, with a certainty she could not explain, that every person whose shattered skeleton lay beneath her feet had died because of her.
Ellysetta’s eyes opened. The brittle white boneyard of her dream became the night-dark ceiling of the room she and Rain shared at Kreppes. She could hear the low voices of her quintet just outside the bedroom door.
She sat up, and out of habit turned to check the Sentinel blooms beneath her pillow. The flowering sprigs were still in place, as they had been every night since leaving Elvia. Not a Mage-sent dream then.
Beside her, Rain stirred. His hand flexed against the bed-sheets, seeking her.
Shei’tani.
The sleepy call drifted from his mind. Not Spirit, merely an unchecked thought.
She brushed back the silky spill of hair that feathered across his brow.
“Las, kem’san. Ruliath.”
Peace, my love. Go back to sleep. A push of encouraging Spirit accompanied the words, a gentle weave that she laid upon him without guilt.
He was so weary. The fact that her dream had woken her but not him was proof of his utter exhaustion. He had been so strong for so long, but his vast power was beginning to flag. Madness—both from the trauma of war and from their uncompleted truemate bond—was chipping away at the powerful barriers that held back the torment of his overburdened soul. Yesterday, his thoughts
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