Page 27 of A Voice of Silver and Blood (Crown of Echoed Dreams #1)

THE KINGS BARGAIN

T he last note fades, but still ringing in the air like it doesn’t want to let go. I sit frozen for a beat, fingers slack on the strings. The room feels different—lighter, but also…watched. I glance toward the window, then toward the shadows near the door, and?—

He’s there. Just inside the doorway, half in shadow, arms folded.

A judgmental gargoyle standing watch. The sight of him brings back the sting of his departure, the raw terror of the dreams, and the bone-deep weariness I’ve been trying to ignore.

It’s too much. My body aches from the inside out, and the last thing I need is a silent judge.

“Seriously?” I say flatly, pushing myself to my feet. Every muscle protests, sore and screaming. I force myself to stand straight, refusing to let him see how much last night took out of me. “You know breaking and entering is still a crime, right?”

Faelan doesn’t answer right away. His expression is unreadable, but his eyes—those impossible eyes—hold too much. Guilt. Relief. And something darker he’s trying to swallow .

“I didn’t break anything,” he says, voice low. “The wards let me in.”

“Of course they did,” I mutter. “Next time I’ll ask the Dream to install a deadbolt specifically for you.”

I set the guitar down gently and rise, sore all over but pretending not to be. My legs don’t want to cooperate, but I stand anyway. I’m not going to let him see how much last night took out of me. Not again.

“You should be resting,” he says.

“Says the one still bleeding,” I say, noticing the red stain on the side of his shirt. It glistens wetly.

“I’m fine.”

“Great. Then we can skip the passive-aggressive medical advice and get to why you’re lurking in my living room like a judgmental gargoyle.”

His mouth twitches—almost a smile—but not quite.

“I came to make you an offer.”

“Oh good,” I say. “Because that’s been going so well for me lately.”

A beat of silence. He takes a step forward, then stops. The distance between us is measured, deliberate. He won’t come any closer and I feel that decision like a bruise.

“You’re changing,” he says, his voice quieter now. “The Dream’s inside you. Waking up. Pulling you deeper. You can feel it, can’t you?”

I nod once. “Every time I close my eyes.”

“You won’t be able to resist it much longer. And the Queen knows that. She’s already moving against you. Her Hunt didn’t stop at the church. She’s marked you.”

I cross my arms. “You think I don’t know that? She’s been in my dreams.”

“No.” His eyes meet mine—serious, steady. “She’s not only in your dreams, not anymore. She’s in your shadow.”

The words sink in like ice. I try not to flinch, but he notices anyway. He runs a hand through his long white hair, the movement sharp, frustrated.

“I didn’t want it to come to this. But we’re out of time.”

“Out of time for what?”

“For you to pretend this is something you can survive alone.”

I don’t answer. I can’t. Faelan straightens, that strange stature of royalty sliding into his posture like armor.

“There’s a way to protect Milo. To protect you. But it means stepping into my world.”

“I already stepped into your world. You just didn’t tell me what it was.”

“This is different.” He pauses. “I can help him recover—fully. Burn the last of Corvin’s magic from his blood. Give him back the dreams he lost.”

I inhale, narrowing my eyes and studying his face. This is weighted. There’s a cost he’s not saying.

“You can do that?”

“Yes.”

I study him, waiting for him to elaborate. To name the price, but he doesn’t speak, meeting my gaze with his own quiet and steady one.

“What’s the catch?”

“You’ll have to come with me. Meet the Fae Court.”

My stomach flips. “Why?”

“Because they need to see what’s coming,” he says. “They need to see you .”

“And if I say no?”

“Then they’ll write you off as another mortal mistake. And they won’t lift a finger when the Queen comes for you next.”

I let out a breath, shrugging and shaking my head.

“So this is a political thing.”

“It’s a survival thing,” he says, tightening his jaw.

“Skye, I left the Court. I turned my back on the throne. They blame me for what happened—rightly so. My absence let the vampires gain power. Now the Queen feeds and it’s not only blood.

She’s draining something deeper. Hope. Belief. And when people stop dreaming?—”

“The Fae die.”

He nods once. “You’re stirring the Dream again. Reopening what she’s spent centuries closing. If the Court sees you for what you are… they may listen. They may fight.”

I chew the inside of my cheek. My body wants to move, to pace, but I force myself still.

“And you? What do you want?”

He doesn’t answer. I step toward him, closing some of the space between us. Confronting him, forcing him to look at me .

“You saw Corvin kiss me.”

His face hardens as he narrows his eyes and clenches his jaw. His hands twitch.

“I saw him claim you.”

“No,” I say. “He tried. I didn’t let him.”

“You didn’t stop him, not fast enough.”

The words hit like a slap. I breathe through it the way my Mom taught me.

“You’re angry,” I say. “Fine. Be angry. But don’t lie to me about what this is really about.”

His hands twitch then curl into fists at his sides. Anger comes off of him in waves.

“This isn’t about me,” he says, his voice low, almost growling.

“Bullshit,” I snap. “You’ve been watching me from the shadows, saving me when no one else would, and now you won’t even meet my eyes. Is that supposed to protect me?”

His gaze lifts, raw and bitter.

“Not you. Me. It’s supposed to protect me.”

I flinch at the honesty. He hates himself for saying it and I can see it.

“We’re not safe,” he adds. “Not now. Not ever. If I let myself want… something…it makes a target out of both of us.”

Silence stretches between us, thick and heavy.

The words hang in the air, a raw confession that demands a response, but I can’t find my voice.

I see the years of regret and self-denial in his eyes, a pain so deep it feels like my own.

My heart aches not from a wound he gave me, but from one he carries himself .

I take a step closer, the small movement feeling like a defiance of gravity.

“But you did want something,” I whisper, the question laced with a vulnerability I didn’t know I had. “Didn’t you?”

He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t deny it, either.

His jaw clenches, and he looks away, his gaze falling on the hollow fruit of a nearby tree.

He is a wall I cannot climb, and in this moment, I understand that the greatest threat isn’t the Queen or the Court—it’s his silence.

The moment passes, and the ache in my chest is sharp, almost unbearable.

I turn my head, looking toward Milo’s door, remembering the reason I came here.

“You can really fix him?”

“Yes.”

I blink slowly, taking a deep breath then exhaling slowly before I nod.

“Then give me five minutes. I want to see him.”

I crack Milo’s door open just enough to peek inside.

He’s asleep, tangled in too many blankets, one leg hanging off the bed like a crooked starfish. His lips twitch in some half-dream and I wonder what he sees—if it’s anything at all. The heaviness that clung to him these past weeks seems lighter. Like something dark let go of him.

I step closer. The shadows near his chest—where the Queen’s curse nestled—are fading. Because of Faelan or because of Corvin’s marking him, I don’t know.

I glance back at Faelan, waiting silently in the hall, leaning against the wall like a sentinel carved from regret.

He hasn’t said a word, but I feel his power flickering beneath the surface.

I turn back to Milo. Just a moment longer.

Moving on my tiptoes I sneak across the room to stand next to him.

“I’ll come back,” I whisper. “I’ll fix what’s broken.”

Then I kiss the top of his head, ease the door shut behind me, and follow Faelan into the dark.

When I step outside, Faelan is already moving.

No more explanations. No hesitation. Just silence and long strides, like the weight of what he’s about to show me is pressing on him from every angle. I don’t ask where we’re going, following while the is air thick with unspoken things.

We cross the quiet, sleeping city, heading toward the green rise of Penn Valley Park. Streetlights flicker. The wind smells like rain and earth and memory. He doesn’t speak again until we reach the shadowed slope near the edge of the Scout statue, where stone gives way to roots.

“This way,” he says, and disappears beneath the earth.

The entrance is nothing. A fissure in the stone beneath the park’s western slope, half-hidden by tangled vines and old construction debris. But the air changes the moment we step through—thickening with age, with magic. With memory.

Faelan walks ahead in silence. Torches light the way and the light catches faint glyphs that pulse along the tunnel walls—worn symbols etched in languages I don’t know but almost recognize.

Moss carpets the ceiling. The stone underfoot is slick and cold.

Water drips somewhere in the dark, rhythmic and endless.

“This place feels… ancient,” I murmur.

“It is,” he says. “It remembers when this land dreamed and sang. ”

I run my fingers across one of the runes. It sparks faintly, and for a moment, I see something—a market lit by moonlight, people dancing barefoot through tall grass, laughter bright as chimes.

Then it’s gone.

Faelan glances over his shoulder, something flickering in his expression. Not quite pride. Not quite fear.

“It’s remembering you too.”

I catch up, keeping pace as the tunnel narrows.

“You said the vampires feed on more than blood.”

“They used to just kill.” His voice is quiet, but sharp. “Now they harvest. They learned how to siphon what matters most—hope, imagination, will. They feed on belief. On dreams. And every time someone gives up, chooses numbness over pain, their world grows stronger. Ours—fades.”

I exhale, slow. “And the Dream is… dying?”