Page 21 of A Voice of Silver and Blood (Crown of Echoed Dreams #1)

“Milo—” I hold him, steadying his shoulders as he tries to bolt upright. “It’s me. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

He blinks. Once. Twice. Then his gaze locks onto mine and something in him relaxes, just slightly. His fingers curl in the fabric of my shirt.

“Skye?” His voice is rough, broken. “What… what happened?”

“You were taken,” I say softly. “They fed on you. You were—” I can’t say dying. “You were fading.”

Milo touches his chest. His breath hitches. “I feel…weird.”

I glance at Corvin.

He rises, silent and composed, watching Milo like someone measuring a debt before it’s been paid. Milo’s eyes dart from mine to where I’m looking; then they widen, and his lips curl into a snarl.

“What did you do to me?” Milo’s voice is sharp. He tries to sit up, but he winces—his body too weak to support much movement.

“I saved your life,” Corvin says. “You were too far gone for mortal means to work.”

“Tell him the truth. You gave him your blood,” I say.

“Not quite. I gave him power, filtered through blood. It’s not the same.” Corvin’s gaze flicks to me. “But the result is similar. He lives. He breathes. His mind is his own. ”

Milo sags, and his eyes drift shut, like the exhaustion is catching up. I feel him slipping toward sleep, but not unconsciousness—not that terrifying, drifting nothingness from before. This is real rest. I shift, turning toward Corvin, careful not to wake Milo.

“So it’s done?”

“For now.”

“That doesn’t sound like reassurance.”

“It’s the truth.” Corvin studies me for a long moment, then speaks quieter.

“The bond is nascent. Fragile. But it’s there.

You made the choice—his life for a tether.

He’s not a vampire. He’s not bound to eternal darkness, or whatever myth you’re thinking.

But he’s marked. If I speak his name in the right way…

he will answer. If I ask something of him—he won’t be able to refuse. ”

My stomach twists. Milo stirs, sensing something wrong even in sleep. I lower my voice.

“So that’s it? He’s yours?”

“He’s alive,” Corvin says simply. “That was the cost.”

I stand slowly, letting Milo’s head rest on my folded jacket. I square my shoulders.

“What are you not telling me?” I ask, narrowing my eyes and glaring at him.

“I’m keeping my promise,” he says. “I’m doing what I must to protect you.”

“The one you made to whom?” I ask, knowing he won’t answer the question. Corvin frowns, then slowly, too slowly, shakes his head. “Then we’re even now. You don’t get to use this as leverage.”

Corvin arches a brow. “You misunderstand. I didn’t say you owed me.”

My pulse stutters.

“I gave him a piece of my will. My essence. That creates a link between us,” he says. “A real, lasting one.”

“But I chose,” I say. “Not him. That doesn’t make it binding.”

“You chose for him. ” Corvin’s voice hardens, if only slightly. “And now you carry that weight.”

My hands ball into fists. He steps closer, eyes dark, unreadable.

“I’m not your enemy, Skye, but I am what I am. You’ve made a deal—whether you admit it or not.”

The mark beneath my collarbone pulses. Not painfully—but insistently. As if something in the Dream shifted and it’s responding to it. As if this moment sent a ripple outward.

“I won’t let you use him,” I say.

Corvin smiles faintly. Not cruel. Not kind. Just… inevitable.

“We’ll see.”

He steps back, then fades into the shadows without a sound, his presence falling away like mist. Only the echo of his words lingers behind, wrapping around me like smoke.

Milo exhales in his sleep, lips parting. His hand twitches and his fingers curl slightly—as if responding to a string pulled from far away. And I know the price is real, that he’s alive—but no longer free.

Milo sleeps against my shoulder, light as a shadow and twice as fragile.

His breath is steady, but every rise and fall of his chest feels like a miracle I’m not sure I deserve.

I keep one arm wrapped around him, cradling his weight as I navigate my way outside.

The rain has stopped, but a mist lingers, wrapping the world in a silver blur.

Faelan meets me as soon as I exit the warehouse, wordless. One glance at Milo, unconscious and pale, and he knows. I see it on his face.

“You found him,” he says quietly.

“I did.” My voice is hoarse. I don’t stop walking.

Faelan steps in beside me, falling into pace.

“What did Corvin take?”

“Not what,” I say. “Who.”

He says nothing at first. But I feel him glance at me. “Milo’s alive.”

“Because I made a deal I didn’t understand. Because I was desperate. Because I didn’t know what else to do.” I stop and hitch Milo higher in my arms. “That’s becoming a pattern.”

Faelan walks with me in silence for a few more blocks. We reach my apartment building. I fumble my keys one-handed, get the door open, and stagger inside. He follows.

I settle Milo gently on the couch, draping a blanket over him. His lips are no longer blue. His skin has a little color now. It should make me feel better. It doesn’t. Faelan lingers by the door.

“Corvin didn’t turn him.”

“I know.”

“But he’s bound. ”

“Yeah. Blood magic. Thrall-light, or something.”

I wrap my arms around myself and stare at Milo’s sleeping face. He looks peaceful, the same way he always does when he’s too far gone in making trouble. I almost laugh, but I don’t.

“I chose for him,” I say softly. “I didn’t ask what all it would mean. I didn’t think it through. I reacted.”

“He would’ve died,” Faelan says. “There wasn’t time for anything else.”

“That doesn’t mean I get to decide who he belongs to.”

Faelan’s jaw clenches. “Corvin doesn’t own him. Not yet.”

“Tell that to the mark I saw forming on his skin,” I say. “Tell that to the part of him that twitched when Corvin left.”

Silence stretches. I turn and move toward the window. Outside, the city glows like a wet ember. So normal it’s insulting.

“I’m trying so hard to hold it all together,” I say, barely above a whisper. “But it’s slipping. Everything. Milo. Me. Whatever I thought this life was supposed to be.”

Faelan steps closer. I don’t look at him, but I feel him near.

“You’re not slipping,” he says. “You’re changing.”

“And if I don’t like what I’m becoming?”

He pauses. “Then don’t stop. Keep going. Until you become something else.”

I let out a quiet breath. “That’s not comforting.”

“It’s not meant to be.”

The mark under my collarbone pulses. Once, softly, but warm. It doesn’t hurt, but it reminds me that something saw me in that Hollowland and reached out. And something answered when Faelan kissed me. Something bound to me when Corvin gave Milo back.

And none of it was free.

“I’m not going to be afraid of this,” I say suddenly, surprising myself. “Not the Dream. Not the mark. Not even what I did to save him.”

Faelan nods once. “Good.”

I turn from the window. “But I’m not going to forget it either.”

His eyes hold mine. Silver. Unreadable. “Then you’re already stronger than most.”

Behind us, Milo shifts in his sleep. I cross the room and sit beside him, pulling the blanket higher. His hand twitches once.

“I won’t let anyone take him from me,” I say. “Not the Queen. Not Corvin. Not the Dream.”

Faelan’s voice is soft behind me. “Then you’ll need power.”

I meet his gaze. “Then show me how to get it.”

“You’ll have to come with me,” Faelan says. “We cannot do this here.”

“Not now,” I say, glancing at Milo on the couch. “We need time.”

Faelan purses his lips and for a moment I would swear I see pain at my rejection.

He doesn’t speak, but nods instead. Milo watches the exchange through half-lidded eyes, quiet and pale, but not asking questions.

He hasn’t spoken, which worries me too, but one thing at a time.

Faelan steps back and disappears into a shadow.

I hate the way he does that .

I turn back to Milo, relief and dread warring in my chest. He’s breathing, truly breathing, but his eyes are open now.

Not half-lidded. Fully open. They are still Milo’s eyes—the warm brown I’ve known my whole life—but there’s something new in them.

A stillness. A depth. And for a fleeting, terrifying moment, I see a flicker of silver, like a distant star, before it’s gone.

He watches the spot where Faelan vanished, then slowly, deliberately, turns his gaze to me.

His expression is unreadable. He doesn’t speak.

He doesn’t move. He just watches, and a chill, colder than the rain, traces itself down my spine.

The thrall has given him life, but it has also given him something else—something I don’t understand, and something that frightens me more than any vampire.