Page 6 of A Voice of Silver and Blood (Crown of Echoed Dreams #1)

THE TASTE OF FEAR

T he streets are quiet. Quieter than they should be, even for this hour.

Even for the Bottoms, where the concrete is chipped like old bone and the lamps buzz with more static than light.

There’s a wrongness that seems to cling to the air tonight.

My boots strike the pavement with hollow thuds.

Too loud, too alone. The chill in the air bites deep too.

I tug my jacket tighter around and keep moving.

The Vinyl Vein’s flickering sign vanishes behind me while the last echo of my final chord still rings in my chest. It’s always like that—music leaves me hollow when I’m done, like I’ve given away something that I can’t quite name.

Usually, I don’t mind, but tonight, it bothers me. An empty ache I want to fill. More music, noise, companionship. Anything.

There’s something in the silence following me home. Something off. Like the city’s holding its breath, waiting for a scream it knows is coming. It’s a weird feeling I can’t shake .

“Don’t be dramatic,” I mutter under my breath, forcing a laugh that doesn’t sound like mine.

Then I hear it. A step.

It’s close behind. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end in an instant. I slide my hand inside my pocket, gripping the taser I carry. I slow my pace, testing, and the echo does the same.

Shit.

It won’t be the first time I’ve been mugged.

Most times I can hold my own. Give as good as I get, usually good enough to convince my attacker to find easier prey but this feels different, scarier.

As if being mugged isn’t scary enough. There’s always the possibility that I’ll become another statistic in the murder rate of the city which is always high too.

Steeling my nerves, I glance over my shoulder, but there’s nothing but the length of cracked sidewalk and a dumpster dripping something I don’t want to identify. Still shadows crowd the corners of the alley and seem to twist as if they’re alive.

My skin prickles and I quicken my pace.

It’s probably the weirdness from last night. I’ve felt off. Like I don’t quite fit where I am. As if I fell out of sync with the universe.

The weight of my guitar pulls at my shoulder with every step. I fight the urge to ditch it and run. If I lose it, I lose my best source of income. This city’s made me wary, sure, but I’m not usually paranoid. But tonight…my gut isn’t wrong. The sooner I’m behind closed doors the better .

I reach my apartment’s stairwell, breath tight. My hand touches the rail next to the stairs and the cold metal anchors me to something real. Just as a sense of relief comes?—

“You shouldn’t walk alone.”

The voice is smooth. Velvet on glass. I spin.

He’s halfway up the steps where, a second ago, there was no one.

Pale. Sharp. He’s too still, like a mannequin that has learned how to speak.

Red eyes gleam beneath the shadow of a hood.

Everything about him screams wrong. His clothes are dated, years out of style, but they look like they just came off a high-end boutique rack.

“Who—” My voice cracks. I clear my throat and try again. “Who the hell are you?”

He smiles, which is anything but reassuring.

“Just a concerned party,” he says. “Though not as concerned as the one who sent me.”

My fingers curl into fists. I take a step back, but the air feels like it’s resisting. My instincts scream to run but my legs freeze. His lips part. I see the flash of teeth that are too sharp. Too long.

Shit.

He lunges.

I throw my guitar case up like a shield—pure instinct. He slams into it, knocking me sideways. My shoulder slams against the brick wall. Pain shoots down my arm. I scream and kick, but it’s like fighting smoke that bites.

His hands grab my coat, yanking me close. I see his mouth open wider than it should. The scent of rot and roses floods my nose.

Something crashes into him with a sound like a freight train .

He lets go and I hit the pavement. Stars explode behind my eyes. I blink, trying to make sense of the motion. The violence, the blur of darkness, and the sense of fury. Two figures roll over each other.

One of them growls.

That’s not human.

And suddenly my attacker is in pieces . Parts of him fly through the air and red rain patters onto the cracked sidewalk.

I try to sit up, but my body won’t listen. Everything feels like static—my vision blurry, my limbs heavy, too slow, too unresponsive to be mine.

I see the body—no, what’s left of the one that attacked me—crumpled and twitching in the stairwell. Remaining limbs bent wrong. Neck torn. Blood slicking the concrete like spilled ink. My stomach lurches as I try to spin before I’m sick.

Then I see the other man. The one who saved me.

He stands over the broken corpse like a nightmare carved out of shadow and starlight. He’s breathing hard, chest rising and falling beneath a long black coat. Blood paints his hands and mouth.

His fangs.

I’m frozen in place and can’t move. Can’t speak. All I can do is stare as he wipes the back of his hand across his mouth like he’s trying to erase what I just saw. But the look in his eyes—gutted and raw—says he knows he can’t.

He looks at me.

And in that moment, I forget how to breathe.

His fangs shrink. Disappear .

His face softens—no, collapses into something human. Devastated.

“I didn’t want this,” he whispers.

He’s not speaking to me, not exactly. More like to the air. To the stars that aren’t paying attention. I manage a rasp of breath. My lips move around the words before I realize I’m speaking.

“What are you?”

He flinches. I don’t think it’s the question, but the fear in my voice. The world blurs again. Not from fear. Not from shock. From him.

A wave of invisible pressure hums through the air—thick and warm and wrong. It presses against my thoughts, slowing everything, turning my panic into molasses. He’s more than a man. Something… else.

Sleep.

It’s not spoken, nor is it a command. It’s a lullaby woven of will.

I try to fight it.

I try to keep my eyes open. I curl my fingers into fists, digging my nails in painfully. My thoughts are mine .

His presence is too much. He feels ancient. Vast.

He steps forward, arms outstretched like he’s going to catch me as I fall. Darkness pulls me under—not cold, but soft. Like velvet wrapping around a wound. Somewhere in the distance, I hear his voice one more time.

“I’m sorry.”

Then nothing…I’m floating .

Not in water. Not in air. I’m…untethered.

My body’s somewhere far away. I know it. Feel the dull pull of it—bones and skin and fear wrapped in fabric, cradled in arms that move too smoothly to be human.

Something whispers at the edge of my hearing. A heartbeat, not mine. Too slow. Too strong. Like a drum in a ruined cathedral. Then warmth.

The scent of cedar and old books. The scent of rain on ash. Leather worn smooth by time. A voice, low and breaking.

“You weren’t supposed to see me. Not like this.”

My lashes flutter. The world blinks into shape. Shadows ripple above me, flickering like candlelight—but there’s no flame. Only the silhouette of a man setting me gently down on my bed, his hands trembling.

The one who saved me.

His face is lit from below by the glow of my salt lamp. Blood darkens the collar of his shirt and coat. His fingers brush my cheek like he’s memorizing it, then pause like he realizes he doesn’t have the right.

I’m fighting to be awake. Aware. The whisper’s pull is heavy, pressing against my will, taking all I have to resist.

He steps back—and then the air shifts. A crackle, like static.

From the far corner of my room, where the wall meets shadow, someone else steps forward. Taller. Leaner. Pale as moonlight.

His white hair shimmers like silk caught in a storm. His coat moves even when he doesn’t, stirring as if the air worships him. He’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen in my life. Even as I fight the demands to sleep my heart speeds up .

His face, like a marble sculpture, too perfect to be real. His eyes are like frostbitten fire as they catch on my savior and narrow.

“She is not yours Corvin,” the stranger says, his voice sharp enough to cut through the call of sleep.

The dark man, apparently Corvin, stiffens.

“This isn’t your territory,” Corvin says softly.

“No,” the pale man murmurs, glancing toward me. “But she is.”

A tremor moves through me. I’m no man’s. Period. I try to speak, to move, to defend myself, but my limbs betray me. I’m a ghost in my own skin. My heartbeat stutters, trapped somewhere between waking and sleep.

“She doesn’t know,” Corvin says. He sounds angry, but more than that he sounds tired.

“She remembers ,” the other counters. “You think hiding her in shadows will keep the truth from reaching her? You think stifling her magic will stop the Veil from lifting?”

“She’s not ready. I have to protect her. You know this.”

“She’s already waking, ” the pale man growls. “And you can’t protect her from what she is. Or from what comes next. Neither of us can.”

Corvin steps forward, and for a moment I see them as something more than men— light and shadow, fury and restraint. One carved of storm clouds, the other of starlight turned cruel.

“She is not yours, Faelan,” Corvin says, voice low and dangerous. “Let her sleep.”

“Nor is she yours,” Faelan snaps, the silver ring on his finger gleaming. As he moves, an impossible breeze shifts his hair revealing his pointed ear. Pointed. Ear. What. The Fuck. “You’re the knife she sent to watch her bleed.”

A gust of power swells between them. My window rattles in its frame.

“Enough,” Corvin says, and somehow, it isn’t just a word, it’s an anchor .

The pressure in the room dips. The air stills. Faelan’s eyes don’t leave me.

“She will remember,” he murmurs. “Even if it kills her. Neither of us can stop it or hold it back any longer.”

Then he’s gone in a ripple of darkness. Corvin turns toward me. The fury’s gone, but I see the emotion on his face, though it doesn’t make sense. It looks like grief.

“I tried,” he whispers.

And then—darkness.

I wake to silence.

No sirens. No voices. Only the hum of my space heater and the whisper of wind against my windowpane. Pale morning light drips across my sheets like melted glass, turning everything soft and unreal.

It was a dream. A nightmare. That’s all it was .

I move to sit up—and pain flowers in my shoulder like a bruise blooming beneath my skin. Aches, too specific to have only been imagined. I swallow and my throat is raw. My hands ache and only then do I realize that I’ve clenched my fists so tight my nails leave little half-moon marks in my palms.

My memory of last night returns in shards.

Fangs. Footsteps. A face like smoke. Corvin—my stomach flips.

I twist toward the nightstand. No blood. No broken lamp. No signs of a supernatural turf war in my bedroom. A forgotten cup of country peach tea gone cold on the rickety side table. My podcast mic blinks red, like it tried to keep watch while I was unconscious.

Was it a dream?

I press a palm to my forehead. My skin’s clammy, but the air is warm. Too warm. Like my body’s holding onto something it shouldn’t. I throw off the blanket.

I’m fully clothed. Hell, I’ve still got my boots on and there is dirt on the sheets. My guitar case is propped up against the wall. Which is not a place I leave it, ever. It’s too precarious. Too likely to fall over and be damaged. Forcing my way past the aches and pains, I get up.

There’s a smudge on the windowsill. A fingerprint in the dust. The world hitches, like time jumps and I know.

It happened. All of it.

I stare for a long moment, blinking at nothing. My heart doesn’t race. It just… thuds. Steady. Like it knows something I don’t. Something’s changed.

Not just outside me. Inside. Something old cracked open and now the pieces don’t quite fit back together. I should be afraid, part of me knows that, but instead all I feel is weight.

A question that won’t stop pressing against my bones.

Why me?

I pull myself up, strip off the clothes I slept in, and step into the shower. The lukewarm water does nothing to burn away the chill in my bones. It does manage to fog the mirror, blurring the edges of the woman staring back. Swiping my hand over it I see the worst part?—

I don’t look different.

But I am. On some level I know I’m not who I was. Or what I was, but what does that mean?

My phone buzzes on the counter. I grab it but it slips in my damp hands and I almost drop it. Finally getting it under control, I see a text from Milo:

Still breathing. Love you.

Closing my eyes, I sigh and don’t respond. Instead I wrap myself in the fluffiest towel I own, which isn’t very fluffy at all, and pad barefoot to my desk. The mic’s still on. Ready light blinking. I reach out to turn it off—and hesitate. My fingers hover for a moment then I click record.

“Hey,” I say softly. My voice is rough and low. “It’s me. Skye. Still here. Still trying. I guess… I just needed to say that. In case you’re listening. This is unscripted, as you should know by now.”

I pause .

“Something happened last night. I don’t want to talk about the details but…there’s this moment…after you almost die…where everything is too quiet. It feels like the world is holding its breath, waiting to see what you’ll do next. I…” I pause, unsure what to say.

Unsure what I even mean, but this is flowing, stream of consciousness so I let it go.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I think I’m starting to remember something I’ve been running from my whole life. This world, it’s dark. No matter how bright the sun might be, we’re all facing it. You know that. I do too, but I’m remembering what it felt like to believe…in something.”

A beat of silence.

“I don’t think I’m safe anymore. Maybe I never was.” My voice catches. “And maybe that means I was never only…ordinary, either. Maybe…none of us are.”

Click. I end the recording and sit, breathing. Outside, the wind shifts. The unsettling feeling returns—a sense that something’s watching. Something old.

I don’t know what it means, but if my life has taught me anything, it’s to trust my guts. And my gut is screaming.