Page 25 of A Voice of Silver and Blood (Crown of Echoed Dreams #1)

THE BLOOD PRICE

FAELAN

A blade grazes my ribs, burning more than any cut should, but I can’t give it my attention.

The second strike I deflect with my sword; another slips past. Metal bites deep into flesh as I twist away to keep him from turning the blade.

I collapse shadows and fling the vampire back. More of them appear—they’re everywhere—and I know I can’t protect her here, not alone.

I look to the Fae. My former subjects. Each of them a unique manifestation of the Dream, but they will not help. Many of them retreat, having resigned themselves to their end already.

There is no time to be frustrated or angry. Later. My side throbs, the poison on the blade spreading a sharp-edged numbness .

The Hunt came faster than it should have been able to. The Queen’s hounds descend like shadows with teeth—blades dipped in cold. It has to be dream poison. Nothing else could hurt like this and it’s threading into my blood, dulling my senses, numbing my connection to the Dream.

Skye lies before the altar behind me, her mark glows like a star. They’re coming for her . Always for her. Trying to get past my defense. As soon as I cut one down, two more appear. I work shadow and blade, but it’s not enough. I can’t hold them off. This is a losing game.

I throw my arm wide, summoning the last threads of magic I have, struggling against the poison that’s slowly severing it. The air warps, reality buckles, and a gate—not a gateway, but a rip—forms. I know it will cost me.

“Hold,” I whisper, running to her. “Just—hold, little Dreamer.”

A knife slams into my shoulder as I reach to take her up. I don’t scream, but the pain blazes white. Blood slicks down my arm. I drop to one knee, slamming my palm against the stone.

The Cloak flares. Shadows rise. The sanctuary twists. I grab Skye’s body—light as smoke in my arms—and fall .

We crash into the world-between with a sound like time snapping.

The stone beneath us is slick with dew. The sky overhead is neither night nor day—a liminal hush that bends sound and steals breath.

The tear crashes back together, stopping them, for the moment.

Skye doesn’t stir.

I collapse against an echo of a graffiti-covered wall, gasping. My shoulder isn’t working, numbness spreading from the knife that’s still embedded. Poison is spreading. I feel it—burning cold as it spiders its way towards my heart.

I grab the hilt of the blade, clench my teeth, and jerk it free. I manage to hold my scream down to a grunt as the pain spikes, then drops to something more manageable. Blood flows, and I let it, hoping it will drain some of the poison out.

I look at Skye. She’s breathing, slow and steady. The Dream hasn’t taken her and the vampires didn’t get to her.

I lie back, trying to slow my heart. Blood pools under me. My connection to magic is gone, its last threads burned to ash to bring her here.

My nose is bleeding from the exertion. I’m woozy from the loss of so much blood. Reaching into my pocket, I pull out a cloth and stop up my nose, letting the shoulder drain a little longer.

A single cough breaks the silence. Then her voice, hoarse.

“Faelan…?”

Relief comes so hard I see stars.

“I’m here,” I manage. “You’re safe.”

Her fingers shift against my chest, her eyes half-lidded. A tremor runs through her hand.

“I… sang?

“You did,” I rasp. “You called the Dream. You shaped it.”

She blinks slowly. Her brow furrows.

“It hurt.”

“I know. ”

She tries to sit. I move to help, but hiss between my teeth. Her gaze sharpens, eyes darting to the blood dripping from my side.

“You’re bleeding.” My voice is a strained rasp. “It’s not important.” I press the cloth back to my nose. She pushes herself upright, swaying. “Bullshit.”

She forces herself upright, swaying as she reaches her hand toward me, grazing my jaw. Gentle. Intentional. It’s not a question—it’s care. Gods. She’s close—closer than I can handle in this state.

“You came for me,” she says, like she’s just realizing it. “You fought them off. You saved me.”

“I nearly didn’t,” I admit.

There’s a moment, so much unspoken. Her hand on my cheek. My breath catching. Her mark faintly glowing like a heartbeat we both feel but can’t name.

“I don’t know what this is,” she whispers, “but I feel it. You. The Dream. Everything. And it’s…too much.”

“I know.”

She leans in as if to say more—but the air shifts. My head snaps up. Not close yet, but near. Fae magic wafts past, but there’s also a vampiric scent on the wind.

“We have to move. This place won’t keep them at bay for long,” she says.

She grabs her guitar automatically. I frown. I didn’t bring it; there wasn’t time. So how it’s here, I don’t understand, but I don’t question it. She is a shaper, after all. She turns back to me.

“Can you walk?” I ask.

“I don’t have a choice,” she says, grimacing .

We rise together, our bodies aching, blood trailing behind us like threads too frayed to tie back together. I stay close—close enough to catch her if she stumbles, close enough to feel the heat of her skin, the hum of the mark that feels like a tether linking us.

The world-between is shifting. Walls shimmer, becoming glass, then stone, then stars. Shadows slink like whispers around the edges. The Dream is thin—too thin—and it clings to her like it remembers what it was, or maybe it remembers her.

She’s a little unsteady. I should speak. Tell her to stop. To rest. To let me shield her. But the words don’t come. Instead, I walk and watch: the way her hair catches the dim light, the tremble in her fingers she tries to hide, the echo of song that lingers on her skin. Then she sways.

“Skye?” I reach for her.

She blinks, gulping air like she’s just surfaced from somewhere deep.

“I’m fine,” she says.

She’s not. The Dream is pulling at her—reshaping her.

I feel it as surely as I feel my own heartbeat.

Her reflection flickers like a jagged shard of mirror-glass, no longer the Skye I know, but a queen crowned in silver flame.

Her eyes—lit with Dream light, posture regal, cold and alien.

Then she’s Skye again: pale, bleeding, shaking. Gods. What is happening to her?

She takes a step, and reality ripples. Two new versions of her flicker—one with a guitar and blood on her hands, the other with light bleeding from her mouth like prophecy. I reach for her but the air shifts.

Not violently. This is, in its own way, worse. I feel him before I see him .

Corvin leans casually against a column like he belongs here, or like he never left. The Dream favors him—the dust avoids his coat, the air stills around him like it’s listening. My stomach turns to ice.

“Corvin?” Skye asks, uncertainty in her voice.

“You brought me,” he says, then shrugs. “Or maybe I’ve always been here.”

I step closer to her. Protective. Ready. My hand aches, resting on the hilt of my blade, though I don’t know if I have the strength to wield it.

“You’re in the Dream now, Thread-singer,” he continues, his gaze a brand on her skin. “And the Dream remembers the ties of blood.”

He says her name like it’s a possession. Anger surges, bordering on hate. I want to tear his throat out. Skye stiffens.

“Thread-singer? What does that mean?”

“It means you’ve begun to shift,” Corvin says. “You’re not human anymore. Not since you took my bargain. Not since you woke the Freehold. You walk in two worlds now.”

Her body goes rigid. “I didn’t choose?—”

“You did.” His voice is silk-wrapped steel. “Blood for blood. You chose. You saved your brother. And now, you’re bound to me too.”

I see her flinch. I take a step forward, but Skye steps between us. Gods, even now, she’s defending him?

No. Not defending. Confused. Her body is angled toward me, not him. She doesn’t trust him; she doesn’t understand what he is. Corvin’s tone drops lower .

“I need to make sure you understand where your loyalties lie.”

And then he kisses her. My mind screams. I freeze, a helpless witness. It isn’t a kiss; it’s a brand. He grips her neck and presses his mouth to hers like a victory, not a moment of passion.

A second later, she jerks back, pushing him away, fury flashing across her face as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, as if to scrub away the very memory.

“Don’t you touch me,” she spits.

My heart hammers in my chest as Corvin smirks.

“You’re already tied to me. Through blood. Through your brother. Through the bond you struck. And the blood never lies.”

Then he vanishes. No sound. No drama. Just—gone. Skye spins toward me.

“Faelan—”

I can’t pretend I didn’t see it. That it didn’t feel like an even sharper dagger than the two that stabbed me earlier. I knew Corvin had touched her blood through Milo, but I didn’t think he’d touched her soul, nor did I realize his power worked like this.

“You’re marked,” I say. I don’t raise my voice. I don’t need to.

“It wasn’t like that,” she insists. “It’s not what you think?—”

But I’m already stepping back.

What I think? I think I just saw him claim her. And she didn’t stop him fast enough. I think she made a choice—maybe not willingly, but choices don’t wait for permission .

And more than that—what I felt in the church, what I held in my arms—I let it matter. I let her matter in ways that I never should have. I know how this ends: in pain and grief. Blood and flames. I never should have let my guard down.

I turn and walk into the mist, jaw tight, throat burning. Because I can’t protect her from this, and I can’t protect myself from her. Behind me, the Dream stirs, and I feel her watching me, but I don’t turn back.

Everything is unraveling—and the one thread I thought might hold is already tangled in blood.