Page 72 of A Dance of Water (Moon Song #2)

Shock lined the human girl’s beautiful features, unable to comprehend what was happening. As if she did not truly believe her lover was about to drown her.

Enora gave one last, pleading whisper: "Caliban."

Caliban watched her, hands clenched in tension. The gentle breeze stirred the strands of his black hair. All Luella saw were deep green shadows in his eyes, no remorse.

"I am the Tenebrae, and you will learn to fear me." Caliban threw down his raised hands?—

The water swallowed her completely.

Enora’s screams were quickly silenced by the water. The clear surface of the lake rippled, bubbles rising to the top as she struggled beneath.

But then that, too, ceased.

The air was still once more, but no longer peaceful.

And a lifeless body rose to the surface of the lake. Enora’s drenched form floated, her dark hair nearly black as it swirled around her, held by the water.

Caliban did not flinch as he said into the quiet air: "They all will fear me."

Luella awoke to only one name on her lips:

"The Tenebrae."

With a start, she sat up, feeling pillows around her and the threads taut with distance. She was alone.

Her mind spun as she clutched the amulet with a weak hand.

She remembered everything.

"Oh my…" she breathed in the quiet of the room.

No answer. She had been left alone—she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Her mind whirled with everything she had seen in her dream—memory? Green eyes burned behind her lids. Familiar. But not.

She knew where she had seen such a shade before.

The King—her captor, her enemy, and perhaps… something more.

Vale and Caliban were connected. They had to be. But something gave her pause. Caliban was a fae; she had seen his arched ears. So, not fully related—half-brothers, distant relatives?

It did not matter. What she had seen mattered.

And she had seen Caliban and his relentless ferocity as he forced Enora under the water with his shadows.

It had been Tharen who told Luella he could not find her spirit while she dreamed… It had been Graves who had uttered the dreadful notion of what she was seeing: the past.

And it had been Vale who had told her the dreams were not, in fact, dreams .

Luella had been forced to endure such horrors with her training, she had nearly forgotten that Vale had drugged her—all to watch her sleep and find out where she went. Perhaps the experimentation of her dreams had not been so sinister.

If this was what she had been dreaming. Shadows and death and…

Trembling, her hands curled in the silken sheets.

The Tenebrae. The word still lingered in the air of her room. She had seen him.

She knew what he looked like, every villainous bit of him. Pale skin and black hair. Green eyes tinged with shadows—the only part of him that was reminiscent of Vale.

The soft moment of vulnerability, when his voice had grown tremulous, and he had begged Enora to understand.

Her mind spun to make sense of it all—the way Enora had alluded to a female Prima. Not Tharen, but someone new… different?

In the darkness of her sightlessness, all she could hear was Enora’s haunting screams as the water swallowed her.

Luella’s mind pounded from the weight of it all. She doubted if she’d ever understand. The Umbra, an army of shadowed, stolen beings whose bite turned friend to foe. The Tenebrae, Caliban—one and the same.

Her chest ached from the memory of Tharen’s hands on her, forcing her heart to beat. She could not summon any anger toward him. After all, she had asked for it.

Luella rubbed a hand over her chest, feeling Tharen’s amulet settle over Vale’s Binding mark; she knew bruises would also mar her pale skin from the mage’s punishing touch. Forever undeniable, she was marked by them.

The torturous training had paid off. Vines had grown by her will, even if she had not called them forth intentionally.

Weary victory brought a soft curve to her lips.

For the first time, she noticed, there was no rain.

Bile rose to the back of Luella’s throat.

She heaved as sweat beaded upon her brow, her blindfold absorbing the droplets. Muscles quaked from overuse, but the deeper agony was in her chest, where her magic begged to be free. Only, she did not know how to unleash it.

A hand stroked against her back, iron clinking as Az soothed her. She missed his voice.

"Thank you," she said hoarsely.

Her head thumped on the wet earth, uncaring that dirt and leaves stuck to her. She was too exhausted to care. Her fingers curled in the mud as her breaths evened out.

"Are you done?" Tharen called.

A twig snapped by her side, and Az’s hand tensed against her.

Something hard prodded her ribs; it felt like the tip of a boot. "I said, are you done, or do you want to give up, Princess?" the mage sneered.

Her arms shook as she pushed herself up, swallowing down bile. "I’m not giving up."

She shrugged off Az’s hands. She could no longer be coddled—not if what she had seen in her dreams three nights ago was true. She knew it was.

Her legs trembled as she stood, swaying slightly before rolling her shoulders back, steeling herself as the soft rain misted her skin.

It was no longer a raging tempest. She was spent after so many days of ceaseless training.

But the air was still that of winter—frozen and biting.

Her bare arms pebbled from the intense chill as a sharp gust of wind blew through the clearing of trees, making the leaves rustle.

"I will not give up…" she repeated. "Not if I am to defeat the Tenebrae."

She had a greater understanding now, after her dreams. But that did not mean she would share her revelations with the others.

Venomous green eyes burned in her mind. And as if summoned by the thought, Vale’s voice rang out:

"Do not think you can win, Princess Luella. Not against him."

The fire-woven thread between them crackled.

Distrust made her wary. She chose her words carefully. "How am I to know if I do not try? "

Bastian brushed against her mind, and she froze, lips parting.

She tried to build walls, but against him, it was no use. Every time she placed a brick around her thoughts, he knocked it down.

She felt him, then, inside her.

What are you hiding? he whispered.

If you are so curious… see for yourself, she taunted. She knew she could not keep secrets forever, not from him, and not here. She wanted them to come out when she was ready.

The presence in her mind seemed awed, as if proud of her resilience.

A cold finger stroked over her neck, and she shivered as Bastian pressed his lips to her cheek, moving his plush, warm mouth to brush against her ear as he whispered, "All in due time, pet. The best secrets are the ones most… incendiary."

Then he pulled away from her.

Luella’s skin tingled, hypersensitive, and aching from more than mere power—but desire. She remembered what Bastian had done with her, his mouth against her chest. A place she had no idea could feel so sensitive .

She wouldn’t give in, scared that if she did, secrets would unravel like her barely held control.

Vale gripped her elbow. She staggered from exhaustion as he pulled her to him.

"Luella." The King said her name like it was the answer to every question he had ever had, but also the question itself. "Why are you suddenly so intent on defeating the Tenebrae?"

She could not see Vale’s green eyes, but she knew they were there, watching her.

"I-I…"

His thumb brushed over the crook of her bare arm, and she wanted nothing more than to fall into him, let him tell her that her assumptions were false.

But if they weren’t…

That was what made her hold her tongue.

Enora’s screams echoed in Luella’s head as she managed, "I want to have p-purpose. I want to be more than I have always been."

Her words faltered in her fear, scared that he would push the matter further and rob her of her will. The Binding mark pulsed, just once, as if in reminder of the power he held.

In the distance, she heard the faintest talks between the others, a low whinny of the horses, the drip of rainwater as it fell from curled leaves and trickled to the forest ground.

Vale’s breath stirred her hair. "I meant what I said. False beliefs would be your demise." He pulled her closer, her chest brushing against his. "Against him, you do not stand a chance."

"I thought you wanted me to best my enemies," she countered. "Isn’t that what you said? In the rose gardens?"

"Not with might, Luella."

She shivered from her name on his lips. What was happening to her? She was worked up and excessively aware of every little thing that drew her to them all.

Vale continued, "There is more to battle than power. It is the things no one ever sees that can turn the tide in war. Secret meetings, won loyalties. You do not need to be merely powerful, but a queen."

Her , a queen?

She couldn’t fathom it; she was an abysmal princess, let alone a queen.

Careful of her words, so very careful. "Why do you act as if you know h-him personally?"

She had almost slipped and said the name ringing in her mind, playing back in Enora’s pleading sobs: Caliban .

The King knew who she was referring to.

Smoke tinged the air between them, and she knew he was walking a thin line between control and utter destruction. Was it because of her?

There was a great pause in which her heart thundered, a beacon of her weakness.

"I know males with hearts of evil, and I know they cannot be bested with good intentions alone.

" Vale placed his hand on her cheek. His palm spanned over her face, and she was aware of how breakable she was, how vulnerable with her trembling limbs and sightless eyes.

The rings on his fingers dug into her cheek as he tipped her head up.

"It is those with villainous hearts who always win. "

"And you, King Vale?" She said his title to remind both him and herself of their place. Not lovers, not allies—but captor and captive. "Are you the villain?"

She waited with bated breath for his reply.

"If that is what you deem me to be, then I will gladly be your villain, Princess Luella," Vale murmured.

All she could see was venomous green eyes, a body floating on top of a lake, and curling shadows… Enora’s silenced screams and begging words.

What if King Vale was an even greater villain than she had thought?