Page 29 of A Voice of Silver and Blood (Crown of Echoed Dreams #1)

OF MOONLIGHT AND MONSTERS

I walk away from Faelan without looking back.

The song still trembles in my chest—raw as an open wound—and his silence echoes louder than a scream.

Behind me, the Court fades—towering spires and broken arches collapsing into mist. Every hallway leads somewhere new, or nowhere. The walls ripple like reflections. I don’t know if it’s the magic or me, but within minutes I’m hopelessly lost.

The farther I go, the more the world fractures. Doors open into shadow. The air thickens, tastes wrong. The path beneath me isn’t stone but soft moss laced with glowing strands, pulsing faintly with light. Like the Dream is bleeding under my feet.

I don’t notice the moment I step into the trial. There’s no warning. Just a breath held too long. A stillness that tastes like endings.

The sky vanishes. The arches seal. The light turns silver and merciless.

I’m not alone .

A scream pierces the stillness—Milo’s.

I spin, and there he is—on a hospital bed, pale and shaking, tubes tangled around his arms. His mouth moves soundlessly, his eyes beg. The sight of him is a physical blow to the stomach.

“Milo!” I shout.

I run—but before I reach him, my mother steps into my path. Her hands tremble. Her voice is sharp with accusation.

“You promised me he’d be safe.”

Her words hit me with the weight of her grief. Blood runs down her cheek, and the scent of it is like copper in the air. I stumble, stopping before her, and I’m little. Looking up at her as she stares, wide-eyed and angry. My stomach knots, flipping.

“Mom…I…I tried…”

“Tried,” she scoffs.

Her image flickers, and the hospital room is gone.

I’m lost in darkness. Small. Alone. Afraid. But it’s not empty. The dark shifts, twisting, closing around me. Then I see Faelan, walking away into the dark.

“You make it easy to leave,” he says over his shoulder, his voice cold as ice. The sound of it is a knife twisting in my heart.

I stumble after him, reaching, trying to stop him.

“No… no, this isn’t real?—”

But it feels real. Their voices dig into me. The Dream twists around. Shadows rise. Images pulled from my marrow: every failure, every regret, every moment I wasn’t enough.

Milo slipping through my hands .

My mother’s body, cold and still.

Faelan’s back, always retreating.

“You chose this,” a voice whispers. “You brought this ruin.”

“No,” I whisper. “I’m trying. I’m doing everything I can?—”

The shadows don’t care. They close in, their forms like jagged glass slicing into my skin. I fall to my knees.

“I’m trying?—”

But my voice breaks. I want to scream, but nothing comes out. My throat is full of glass. My chest heaves. I can’t breathe.

And then—silence.

The illusions stop.

The air splits.

Two paths open before me.

One glows faintly, threaded with gold and song and sunlight. I see myself beneath a flowering tree. Milo is laughing, whole. Children run through fields of light. The world breathes again. People sing. Dream again. Hope again. I’m older. Wiser. But still me.

The other path...

The other path burns.

I wear a crown of bone and starlight. The Queen’s throne beneath my feet. The world bows—and bleeds. Cities kneel in silence. Dreamers vanish. I do not sing; I command. I have everything: power, peace. Even Faelan—chained by a thread of silver, his eyes hollow, his love twisted into obedience.

The voice comes again, soft and sickly sweet .

"No one will ever hurt you again. No more loss. No more failure. You can fix everything. All you have to do is take it."

I lift my hand.

The crown pulses, a beat of raw, dark power calling to me. I lift my hand, drawn in. A burning cold runs from my fingertips, a paradoxical fire that promises an end to all pain.

And I want it. I want to stop being afraid. I want to stop losing. I imagine it. The world remade. No more loss. No more aching hunger in Milo’s eyes. No more silence from Faelan.

My breath shudders. My body shakes. But deep down—I know .

This isn’t salvation. It’s surrender.

Power without love. Safety without joy. A future without dreams.

Easier. It would be so much easier. No one would ever hurt Milo again. No one would hurt me. All would be as I wish it to be, no matter what. All I have to do is take it. Reach out. Take the crown. It’s mine.

Hurts forge into armor. Pain lays on in layers that build one on top of the next. I take a step ahead. My past is a weight, holding me down, but I can set it all to right. Those who hurt me will pay: Nico. His bosses. The Vampire Queen.

The oppressive assholes who push us down in their greed to grab more for themselves: more money, more power. Taking and taking, but never giving back.

I could fix it. All of it. All I have to do is take the crown.

I reach for it. It’s cold. So cold, the tips of my fingers burn. I stretch my hand towards it .

Unbreakable by Sia comes unbidden. Swelling from my heart, filling my head and the words slip out, not singing, but whispering them.

I jerk my hand back. The crown pulses, thundering its offer.

My voice strengthens and the song bursts free. I sing. For Milo. For Faelan. For me.

The melody finds me, low and defiant, not with my voice alone, but with my will. A thread of steel braided through sorrow. The shadows shriek, not just with sound, but with light, their forms shattering into a thousand pieces of broken glass that dissipate on the wind.

I turn my back on the crown, and as I do, it doesn’t just crumble—it explodes in a silent burst of cold, dark dust.

I lift my chin. The song sears through me like fire, but this time it doesn’t burn. It cleanses.

A golden wind curls around me, a tangible force of light and life. It pushes back the darkness, and the moss under my feet glows brighter, pulsing not with power, but with peace.

I take a breath, and the air feels fresher, more refreshing than it has in what feels like forever. It fills my lungs, cleansing the lingering doubts, fears, and regrets. I’m not sure what’s left behind, but it’s different.

Then I hear a slow clap and I spin around then look up.

Looking down onto the arena is the Voice of the Court. She claps, slow, each meeting of her hands a cracking sound.

“Satisfied?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.

“The choice is yours, Dreamer. I am only an observer,” she answers .

“Then observe me the fuck out of here,” I say.

She stops clapping, staring with her wide, unearthly eyes.

“Enough,” Faelan barks, striding out of nowhere and to my side. “She has been tested.”

“So she has,” the Voice agrees.

“We’re leaving,” he says, gripping my arm tightly.

Without another word, he spins us around, pulling me out of the arena.

“What the fuck was that?” I hiss, yanking my arm out of Faelan’s grip as soon as we clear the arch.

He looks down at me, flexing his jaw, his eyes unblinking.

“A Trial.”

“No,” I snap, shoving him in the chest. “That was a trap. That was a nightmare wrapped in prophecy and dipped in trauma. I saw Milo dying. I saw my mother bleeding. I saw you walking away.”

“I know,” he says quietly. “That’s what it’s meant to show.”

I shake my head, pacing. My hands won’t stop trembling.

“And the crown. You knew I’d see it. You knew I’d have to choose.”

“I suspected.”

“Suspected,” I echo, bitter. “That I might have to watch my worst fears melt into some fucked-up vision of my future and not fall apart? Not want it?”

His silence is answer enough. It wasn’t just a test of power. It was a test of desire. Of will. Of me .

“I wanted it,” I whisper, ashamed. “That crown. That power. I wanted it.”

Faelan’s breath catches. He takes a step closer, slow and deliberate.

“But you didn’t take it.”

“I almost did.”

“But you didn’t,” he says again, more firmly. “That’s what matters.”

I look up, and his expression isn’t judgment. It’s something softer. Something I don’t know how to hold.

“You don’t have to carry shame for the choice you didn’t make,” he adds.

I cross my arms tight across my chest, like they’ll hold me together if I crack.

“What happens now?”

Faelan glances around. The tunnel behind us fades into nothing but tangled roots and veils of moss.

“Now,” he says, “you rest.”

“Rest?” I echo, incredulous. “You dragged me through trials, illusion hellscapes, and political nightmares ,and now you want me to nap ?”

He huffs—almost a laugh. “Not sleep. Stillness. There’s a place nearby. A training glade. It’s safe.”

“I swear, if I get attacked again?—”

“You won’t,” he says, and the dark swirls around us. “I’ll keep the shadows back. ”

A long silence stretches between us. Then at last, I nod, exhausted.

He leads me through the trees. The path opens into something like a clearing, though it feels more like a dream than a place. The moon hangs full and mirrored overhead, caught in the branches of silver-limned trees. The moss underfoot glows a soft, steady gold, and still water mirrors the stars.

“This place…” I murmur, stunned. “It’s beautiful.”

“It remembers what was,” he says. “And what might be.”

“It reflects the truth?” I ask.

“A truth. Or truths. Here, the Dream is closest to waking. Or to breaking.”

I sink to my knees at the edge of the mirrored pool, my heart aching and voice hoarse from the song I bled in the Trial. My reflection wavers, ripples spreading.

“Teach me,” I whisper.

Faelan doesn’t move.

“I mean it,” I say, lifting my chin. “No more shadows. No more secrets. I want to learn how to use this. How to shape the Dream. How to fight.”

He kneels beside me. The distance between us feels more dangerous than it did a moment ago. Not because I’m afraid of him—but because I’m afraid of how much I don’t want distance.

“Then listen,” he says. “The Dream doesn’t bend to will alone. It listens to longing. To emotion. To music.”

He lifts my hand, slowly, gently. Places it on my collarbone, where my mark faintly glows .

“It moves through you. So you must learn to channel it.”

My breath catches, and my heart speeds up at his touch. His hand lingers over mine, and for one brief moment, our eyes meet.