Page 33 of A Voice of Silver and Blood (Crown of Echoed Dreams #1)

SANTCUM AND SACRIFICE

T he world rights itself with a twist and a tilt. I stumble, gasping.

One breath I’m in the West Bottoms—cold night air burning my lungs, my fingers clutched in Faelan’s, magic humming like a scream. The next, I stumble into silence.

We’re on soft ground, not cold asphalt. Moonlight spills across the ground like spilled milk. The sky overhead isn’t the one I know—it’s velvet dark, stitched with stars I’ve never seen. The air tastes older, thinner, and full of anticipation.

I blink hard, heart still racing. “Where…?”

Faelan doesn’t answer immediately. His grip on my hand is too tight, knuckles white. He finally lets go, slowly, like peeling away from something that matters too much. His eyes sweep the space—a place that feels like memory carved into stone.

“It’s mine,” he says at last. “What’s left of it.”

The Freehold unfurls around us, a living memory.

It’s not grand—not anymore. Cracked pillars curl with vines that shimmer faintly, glowing at the edges.

A low pool mirrors the stars, but not the ones that are overhead.

Everything here seems to breathe; the low hum beneath the ground is a song half-forgotten, and I feel it not just in my bones, but in the mark on my shoulder, a pull like an echo.

This is Faelan’s sanctuary. His last.

I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold. Not from the air—but from everything that’s caught up to me: the fire, the fight, Milo, the way Corvin looked at me like I was already becoming something I couldn’t understand.

Faelan watches me too, closely. Always too closely.

“You’re trembling,” he says.

I laugh, but it comes out wrong.

“I nearly blew up the world and I’ve watched my brother turn into something I barely recognize. Sorry if I’m not feeling very Zen.”

His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t argue. He never has, not about Milo. The silence stretches, heavy with everything we’re not saying.

I step forward, trailing my fingers along a fallen column. The stone hums faintly beneath my touch—alive, almost.

“This place feels like you,” I whisper. “Beautiful. Broken. Still fighting.”

He stands behind me. Close, but not touching.

“It was meant to be a sanctuary,” he says. “For the last of the Dream. For those who still remembered what it could be.”

“And now?” I ask .

He doesn’t answer. I turn to face him. The weight in his eyes nearly undoes me. There’s anger there, yes, and fear, but underneath all of that is grief. An emotion I recognize in myself.

“We’re both running out of places to hide,” I say quietly.

His throat works. He steps closer, and the mask slips for just a second.

“You think I don’t want to hold on? That I don’t want to pull you into my arms and never let you go?”

My breath catches. I blink, hesitating. My life has been one bad thing after another, and the past few days have ramped that to new levels of shit, but this…

“Then why don’t you?” I whisper, desire and something more, an aching need that’s more than physical. A need to be held. To be close. To find what comfort I can in this world gone to shit.

He doesn’t answer immediately. He just stares at me, and I see the internal battle raging in his eyes.

It’s not just grief; it’s a terrifying, visceral fear of a future he's already lived.

I see the ghosts of a thousand heartbreaks in his silver gaze, and for a horrible second, I feel like I'm just another one of them, a story he knows all too well how to end.

“Because the last time I let someone close, I lost everything.”

“I’m not her,” I say, a lump forming in my throat.

“No,” he agrees. “You’re worse. Because if I lose you...”

He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to. I take one step closer.

“Then don’t.”

Faelan breathes like it hurts. His fingers twitch at his sides, like he doesn’t trust himself .

“I won’t,” he says, a promise that feels like a vow. “Rest. But not alone.”

We don’t speak again as Faelan leads me deeper into the Freehold.

It’s not large—at least not anymore. This place has been eaten away by time and sorrow, edges softened by Dream erosion.

But the pieces that remain hum with magic, remembering him.

Columns of living stone curl with night-blooming vines.

Pools reflect constellations that don’t exist in my sky.

Everything glows faintly with breath and memory.

He leads me to a hollowed chamber lit only by the shimmer of dream light flowing through cracks in the ceiling. There’s a low bed carved from living tree roots, covered in thick, soft moss and pale silk like the inside of some moonlit bloom.

I pause, unsure. He doesn’t push.

“You need rest,” he says softly, but his voice trembles around the edges, frayed and thin like mine.

My pulse roars in my ears. I shake my head, stepping toward him instead of the bed.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

Faelan goes utterly still.

His eyes meet mine—silver, burning, vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen. I lift a hand and press my fingers lightly against his chest. His heart beats like thunder under my palm.

“I almost died tonight,” I whisper. “Not in battle. Not by the Queen’s hand. But from everything breaking inside me. If you hadn’t been there?— ”

“I will always be there,” he says fiercely, catching my hand. “Even when I shouldn’t be.”

I search his face. “Then stop holding back.”

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. He stares like I’m the edge of a cliff he’s afraid to leap from. But I feel the Dream bending toward us, soft and hungry.

“I need this,” I say. “Not because I’m afraid. Because I’m not. Not anymore.”

His hands come to my face so slowly it breaks something inside. He doesn’t kiss me. He leans in, resting his forehead against mine, his breath hot and uneven.

“You undo me,” he murmurs. “Every time.”

“Then be undone.”

The kiss comes like gravity. Inevitable. A surrender. It’s not gentle. It’s not perfect. It is desperate, deep, and utterly real. His hands slide down my arms, pulling me close, and I melt into him like he’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart.

Our clothes fall away, breath tangles, and time folds in on itself. The Dream pulses under our skin—slow, golden, alive. He lays me down in the soft moss and follows.

And it's not just desire; it's grief, and longing, and hope carved into every touch. He holds me like I'm something fragile and sacred and already half-lost. And I hold him like he’s home.

His mouth finds every hollow, his voice breaks on my name, and when I fall apart beneath him, it’s not from pain. It's from the ache of being seen. Of being chosen. Of being loved, even if he can’t say the words .

He worships my skin with his mouth, licking, nibbling, fighting against his hands to be everywhere at once, finding my peaked nipples and lavishing them with his tongue.

My hands tangle in his long, silver hair as my back arches involuntarily, the sensations becoming too much. His hand cups my mound, pressing deliciously, but not entering. I grind my hips against his hand while his mouth continues to work magic on my breasts, one to the other and back.

The muscles of his shoulders are tight, sculpted like marble, perfect, lean yet strong. I run my hands over his skin, which is soft to the touch, but warm.

“Skye,” he murmurs, kissing down my stomach.

“Fae,” I huff, wiggling as he hits a ticklish spot that he quickly passes.

Realizing what he’s about to do, I tense. Nervously, I grab at his shoulders, but he pushes my hands away effortlessly.

“Wait…no…” I gasp, but then his mouth is on me, and words are gone.

Pleasure like I’ve never felt before rushes through my body. I’m carried away. I don’t know what he does, only how it feels, and I’ve never felt anything like this in all my life.

His tongue and fingers are a symphony, and as he does what he’s doing, the melody of the Dream comes clear, filling my head until it crescendos, and I scream wordless sounds while my body convulses.

I’m left panting. Exhausted. Drained, yet fully and completely satisfied in a way I’ve never felt before.

He climbs up along me, and I force my eyes open. He hovers a breath over my lips, then his mouth is on mine .

The kiss is forceful, full of need, and I give myself to it, tasting the hints of myself mixed with him. His fingers slide inside, warming the way, and I want more. Need more.

I spread my legs and shift my hips. He doesn’t disappoint. He twists his hips, then pulls out his hand and slides inside.

He fills me in a single thrust that leaves me gasping, digging my nails into his back. He pushes deep, holds, then in moments we’re in sync. Thrusting, retreating, building toward another climax.

It doesn’t take long. He thrusts faster, grunting harder, his eyes locking onto mine as he drives in and back. Suddenly, he arches his back, groaning loudly, then he’s shuddering as he releases.

My own orgasm comes in response. Claiming my body and causing me to twist and turn, making him moan louder.

At last we collapse onto one another. Panting, slowly shifting, to be more comfortable. We lie tangled in silence, my head on his chest, his fingers stroking a line down my spine like he’s memorizing the shape of my soul.

I’ve never felt more exposed. Or more safe. When I look up, he’s staring at the ceiling—eyes open and looking haunted.

His hand, which had been so gentle, stills on my back.

I follow his gaze up to the cracks in the ceiling, where the dream light shimmers.

But he's not seeing the light; he's seeing something else, a memory projected onto the stone.

His mouth is a thin line of pain, and the hand on my back feels distant now, like it's already bracing for a blow.

“What is it?” I whisper.

His hand stills. His breath catches .

“You don’t know what I’ve done,” he says, voice distant. “What I was before all of this. Before you.”

“Then tell me,” I say.

He doesn’t. Not yet. But I hear the pain in his silence. And I know what’s coming next won’t let us stay here for long. We snuggle and I fall into sleep, drifting away to the sounds of his breathing.

I wake with Faelan’s arms around me and the air too still. The hush isn’t peaceful. It’s weighted with pending disaster.

His heartbeat is steady beneath my cheek, but the mark on my shoulder pulses, dull and slow, like a warning drum muffled by distance. Something’s shifted. Not wrong exactly, but not right either.

I carefully slip out of his arms, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. He doesn’t wake.

Outside the chamber, the sanctuary glows faintly in the half-light of what might be dawn—or just the Dream pretending at it. The sky overhead is layered with stars I don’t know the names of. The pools shimmer. The vines rustle without wind.

Something is watching.

I stop at the edge of the courtyard, heart suddenly too loud in my ears. There’s no movement. No sound. But I feel it—like being seen by a memory too old to speak.

The ruins remember.

As I watch, the courtyard blurs at the edges. A whisper of silver figures drifts across the stones, not ghosts but something more primal: echoes of a forgotten time being brought to life by my presence .

A woman in gossamer robes turns her head, and though her face is light and wind, I feel recognition burn behind her eyes. She’s not just a memory; she’s a part of this place that’s waking up.

I shiver. “What are you?”

No answer except the brush of ancient magic curling around my ankles like fog. Then Faelan is beside me, silent as shadow. His voice is low. Rough.

“It remembers you.”

I don’t look at him. I can’t tear my gaze away from the way the Dream breathes around the ruins—slow and deep, like a sleeper beginning to stir.

“What does it mean?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer. I glance at him then, and the tightness in his jaw tells me enough. He doesn’t know either.

Above us, the stars pulse. Below, the stone vibrates with a familiar hum, only now it's louder, more deliberate, a beat I feel in my own blood. The veil shifts—and I feel the tremor in my spine before I hear it. A distant roll of thunder. Not weather, and definitely not natural.

The Dream is warning us. I turn into Faelan.

“They’re coming.”

He nods once. Grim. Steady.

“Then we hold what we can. And when we can’t…”

“We run,” I finish, almost bitter, but I shake my head. “No,” I say, soft but certain. “This time… we make them chase us.”