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And why, of all things, did his thief of a brother have the same intoxicating touch as the man from my vision?

CHAPTER 13

Adira

I doubled over.Agony, sharp and jagged as a molten blade, tore through my chest, up my neck, into my brain.

No mistake, whatever had clawed into my skull as I slept was now killing me.

The ache flowed through my veins, jolting me from the floor. Matted hair stuck to the thin sheen of sweat on my forehead, and my muscles groaned in protest when I shifted.

Back against the wall, teeth bared in a grimace, I blew out a rough, shuddering breath until the ache began to fade.

I propped my forearms over the tops of my knees, bracing for another swell of feverish heat. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if my body were having some sort of horrid reaction to all this flinging through vortexes and traipsing through a new, mystical world.

No mistake, my humanness was bleeding through, and I’d catch some horrid, ancient illness without the technology to heal it.

I dabbed my forehead with the back of my hand, expecting to find clammy damp, but fever was absent. Still, the moment my hand touched my brow, pain radiated across my wrists to the tips of my fingers. A rush of icy heat danced down the divots of my spine—no, not the spine, my snake tattoo. Like a warning flashed in my mind, Iknew something was wrong. Something dark had taken hold somewhere in the palace.

I held out one trembling hand in front of my face. Gilded shadows danced over the runes and coils of black on my fingers. Outside, the night was an inky pitch, moonless and violent. With more aches and bites of pain, I drifted to the glass. Torrent, as the mages called it, was a thrashing hurricane.

Through the darkness, I could make out whipping canvases from tents and canopies left behind from the festival. Lanterns swayed violently, revealing the curved spines of trees and shrubs as the storm swallowed the courtyard whole.

I tugged the curtains closed, then doubled over when another snap of pain rolled from fingertip to lower back.

Only this time . . . Iheardsomething.

A voice, deep and rough, damn near sobbing in pain. Not physical, no. The voice pleaded, the sort of desperation that always stemmed from the agony of a broken heart.

I let out a sharp gasp when something pinched me in the middle. Like a hook dug through my skin and pulled me forward, urging my steps to follow the sound. The more I tried to pull back, the harsher the urge to find the broken soul became.

By the time I reached the bedroom door, the desire to keep away from it was gone, and almost like a compulsion, I needed to follow the voice and soothe the pain.

Hallways were eerie and quiet, only a few iron sconces lit the way with pale candles. Wax skated down the walls and puddled on the floor, hardened in splotches of white and yellow. For a moment I battled with one of the taller sticks. The palace seemed darker than the night. Damn Prince Kage and his crimes against my phone, I could’ve used the flashlight.

The wax reeked. Almost like someone had burned grease in a campfire—woodsy and fatty—but I held firmly to the candle.

I drifted down the corridor, then another, twisting and turning through the palace like I’d been there before, like my steps simply knew where to go. The pain worsened, a sharp pang that lingered after each pulse of my heart.

The heel of my palm pressed over my chest when I reached an impressive arched door. Mahogany wood was carved in draping vines with delicate blooms. Scattered throughout the beauty were symbols of violence—swords, bearded axes, spears.

The pain lived behind this door.

Careful not to make a sound, I blew out the candle, and lifted the latch. Hinges gave with ease, and keeping to the shadows, I entered the room.

Dimly lit by another candle (the flame on the wick was green as wet grass) it was clearly a bedroom.

I swallowed a gasp when a broken voice—a man’s by the timbre—shattered through the black curtains draped over the posts of the bedframe. His words were jagged knives against me, pain slashing against pain, as though his distress bled into my own.

Someone was being tortured beyond those curtains.

Upon my first steps, the dress I’d been supplied for dinner caught beneath my bare feet, tossing me forward. A curse slid from my lips in the same moment another groan and plea rose from the bed.

I wanted to do nothing more than rid him of the pain. Sheets rustled with movement.

The last day had been wholly unbelievable, but for now, I would suspend more disbelief and accept that whatever tortured this poor soul had somehow latched to me. Anguish grew to the point of nausea, and if I did not sever whatever linked us together it felt as though we would both meet a dreary end.

When I tossed back the curtains, my heart sunk to my feet.