Page 26 of A Voice of Silver and Blood (Crown of Echoed Dreams #1)

PART OF ME

A s Faelan walks away, I try to call after him, but the words won’t get past the lump in my throat. I reach out a hand, and the mist curls around it, thick and silver. I reach for something—anything—but the world slips sideways.

I don’t remember falling asleep. I don’t remember sitting down. But the world isn’t real. Or maybe it’s the most real thing I’ve ever seen.

Everything becomes an empty grayness with shadows that seem to form the streets of the Bottoms, but they’re faded and dim, barely there—too thin to be real. Like some artist lightly sketched an idea then abandoned the project before finishing it.

A door creaks open ahead of me, tall and warped, standing free in the fog with no walls to hold it. I step through without thinking.

And I’m home.

Not my apartment—my childhood home, long since bulldozed and buried beneath a freeway exit. The worn couch and peeling lead paint. The floor creaks in familiar protest under my bare feet. I smell lavender and lemon cleaner, my mother’s scent, and I know before I see her that she’s here.

She’s at the table, back straight, hands wrapped around her favorite mug, the scent of peach tea with a touch of honey filling the air. Her hair is dark and longer than I ever remember seeing it. She looks younger, but her eyes are hollow, haunted. She sees me and doesn’t.

“Mom?” I whisper.

She flinches. Then her face cracks open with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“I knew this would happen,” she says. “The Dream always finds its way back in.”

I step closer. “You knew?”

“You were born from it,” she says. “Just like I was. But I turned away. I closed the door. You… haven’t.” She glances out the window. The sky is red. “You’ve opened it wider.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice catches, raw with a lifetime of unanswered questions. “Why didn’t you tell me what I am? Why did you let me walk blind?”

She presses a hand to the table. It leaves a smudge of blood when she lifts it—a dark, sticky stain that mirrors the mark on my own skin. The cost of her silence; the cost of my blood

“I wanted to protect you,” she whispers, her voice filled with a grief that is both ancient and fresh. “From this. From what you are. From what they would make you.”

Outside the window, the sky splits. A white light erupts across the horizon, followed by shadow rolling in like smoke. Something is screaming, not in fear, but in fury. In hunger .

Her gaze fixes on me now—sharp and terrified. “You must be careful what you shape, Skye. The Dream listens, but it doesn’t judge. It merely reflects. And what is reflected can consume you.”

The house trembles.

“Wait,” I say, but her form shimmers, blurring at the edges like ink in water.

“Even hope can be a weapon,” she whispers, her voice fading like a last breath.

And then she’s gone.

The scent of lavender and lemon cleaner vanished is replaced by the sharp, cold tang of ozone and old stone.

I’m barefoot on a cold stone floor. A throne room, but not made of gold. It’s crafted from silver-veined marble wrapped in ivy. The stained glass casts fractured light across the walls, and I sit—no, I stand—no, I rule here.

A crown of light rests on my brow. My skin glows, faintly.

People bow before me. Children, elders, the lost and broken.

The hungry. Their eyes reflect stars. Their faces show hope.

I feel their needs, their desperate yearning, not just in my mind, but as a physical ache in my own chest, a hollow hunger that mirrors theirs.

I lift my hand. A vine unfurls midair, blooming into song. My voice shapes the space like clay.

The world bends toward me. They sing with me. And in that moment, everything is perfect. Then—it darkens .

One by one, the faces dim. The light in their eyes flickers out, replaced by a dull, desperate emptiness.

They look at me like I’ve betrayed them, like I promised them something I didn’t understand, something I couldn’t deliver.

Their hunger becomes my own—a gnawing void.

It’s my fault. The vine wilts. The sky blackens.

A figure steps from the shadows—me again, but twisted. Older. Colder. Her eyes are like chips of ice, and her mouth curves into a smile that doesn’t warm, a predator’s smile.

“You sang light into the world,” she says, her voice a cruel echo of my own. “But it wasn’t enough, was it? You promised them hope, and you gave them… nothing.”

“I was trying to help,” I whisper, my voice weak, choked with guilt.

“And you did. Until you didn’t. Until your power became their cage.”

She turns. The throne behind her is blackened, the vines wrapping tight like chains. The crowd is gone. In their place are hollow-eyed monsters—Fae, vampires, humans—with no dreams left, only the raw, consuming hunger I now feel in my own gut.

“You built a kingdom,” she says, her voice dripping with scorn. “But forgot to ask what it would cost. Forgot that power always demands a price.”

She lifts her hand, and the stained glass above shatters, raining down shards of dead light.

The sound of shattering glass echoes, then twists into the roar of flames .

The world is on fire.

The sky bleeds smoke. The ground cracks with ash. I run through the wreckage of Kansas City, buildings swallowed by roots and stone and shadow. The air chokes with the smell of burning dreams and despair.

Music drips from the air like blood. A single bell tolls in the distance. The sound is cracked. Wrong. I trip and fall into a shallow pool but it’s not water, it’s a mirror.

I look. My reflection shows nothing, only the city burning behind me, a testament to my failure. Then it ripples. And I see Faelan.

He’s walking away. His back to me. His shoulders tense, his form fading into the smoke. My voice catches in my throat—I try to scream, to call his name, to beg him not to leave me alone in this wreckage, but no sound comes. The silence of his departure is a deeper wound than any fire.

I slam my fists against the mirror.

And from behind me, I hear Corvin’s voice. Quiet. Certain.

“This is what happens when they stop listening to the song. This is what happens when you are abandoned.”

I spin, but he’s not there.

The mirror cracks.

I wake gasping, a scream caught in my throat. The scent of smoke and ash vanished, replaced by the stale air of my bedroom.

Sweat clings to my skin. My sheets are twisted. The room is still dark—barely morning—but I can feel the Dream pulling at the edges of reality, its echoes clinging like smoke.

I sit up slowly, palms over my eyes. The air tastes like ozone and grief. Three futures. Three endings. All of them twisted.

I swing my legs off the bed. My feet hit cold floorboards. For a moment, I just breathe—counting each inhale like it might save me.

Then I rise and step into the hall. Milo’s door is cracked. I ease it open with a breath held tight in my chest.

He’s curled under the covers, snoring softly. Completely still. Safe. Unaware. Untouched by my screams or the storm churning in my heart and soul. Something in me loosens at the sight.

I stand and watch the slow rise and fall of his chest. He stirs once and rolls over, but doesn’t wake. The world is crumbling at the edges, and he’s still here. Still whole. I whisper a thank you but I don’t know who to send to. Then I close the door.

Back in my corner, I stare at the red light of the mic for a long time.

Dust glints on the mesh. I haven’t touched it in days; it feels like another life, a world away from the shattered realities I just witnessed.

The silence feels heavier than it used to.

Not peaceful. Hollow. It feels like a challenge.

I sit. My hand hovers over the controls, trembling slightly.

Every instinct screams at me to run, to hide, to pretend none of this is real.

But the dreams… the warnings… they demand an answer.

This isn’t just a recording; it’s a declaration, a line drawn in the sand of my own fear.

I adjust the gain. My finger shakes, but I press down.

The red light glows, steady and unforgiving. I click record .

My voice is hoarse when it comes, but steady. A low thrum starts beneath my collarbone, the mark pulsing in time with my words, a silent current flowing through me.

“This is Skye, from Ties That Bind. This is not scripted. It’s… late. Or early. I don’t know.

I had a dream. Or maybe a warning. Maybe a memory that hasn’t happened yet. I keep thinking about voices—how we all have one. I don’t just mean singing, or speaking, or podcasts; I mean… the voice that makes us who we are.

The voice we use to show the world what we believe.

Who we love. What we’ll fight for. Some people lose theirs.

Some people give it away. Some never realize they had one in the first place.

But I think… I think the world is breaking because too many of us stopped using it.

Or we use it to echo hate. Or fear, or worse—indifference.

So I guess that’s my question. If you still have yours…what will you do with it? What will you say, when it’s your turn?”

I take a breath. The hum beneath my skin intensifies, a raw, vibrant energy.

Then I pick up my guitar. The song comes slow at first, like water through a cracked wall.

But then—then it floods. It’s not rehearsed.

Not clean. But it’s real. Part of Me by Evanescence flows, putting words and melody to all that I’m feeling.

As I sing, something shifts. In me. Around me.

It’s not the music. It’s me.

My mark begins to pulse again, silvery-gold light blooming under my skin like embers stirred awake. I feel it building—sorrow, longing, and strength braided into melody .

This is how I shape. How I reach the Dream. Not through power. Through voice. Through song. I close my eyes and let the last chord linger.

When I stop recording, the room is brighter. Not from the sun. From something else. A thin thread of light stretching from the strings to the ceiling, vanishing into nothing.

The air around me hums, a low, almost imperceptible vibration that feels like a vast, ancient presence.

It’s not cold, not exactly, but there’s a subtle, possessive edge to it, like a predator listening to its prey.

A faint echo of the Queen’s whisper seems to brush the edges of my mind—a reminder that every answer from the Dream comes with a price.

The Dream is listening. And this time, I’m ready to speak.