Page 20 of Broken Fates (Severed Flames #3)

Chapter 20

Vale

T he room was too quiet in the aftermath of the Luxa’s disappearance.

But inside me? There was nothing but chaos.

I shoved my fury, my rage, my despair into a little box inside my head, trying to slam the lid shut before it could consume me. Because if I let it out—if I let myself break again—there would be no coming back from it.

I’d set out to save my sister, and that was exactly what I was going to do.

My gaze flitted to the torn pages in my hands, the weight of them pressing down on my bones. It wasn’t just that Nyrah had stolen them. The weight was because they meant something.

She’d hidden them, having the answers before I even thought to look for them.

And now, she was gone.

I clenched my fingers around the fragile papers, my heart pounding, mind racing. The Luxa’s words echoed in my skull.

I stared at the torn pages, my breath sharp and uneven. Nyrah’s handwriting still marked the edges, hurried notes scrawled in a script I knew better than my own. My throat tightened, a painful, sharp ache pressing into my very soul.

She had found the answer first. And I hadn’t even known.

What if this wasn’t enough? What if I failed her again?

I wrapped my fingers around the parchment. No. No more waiting. No more second-guessing.

"Follow the fractures."

Her voice echoed in my mind, looping over and over again like a chant. A command. An order that was already shoving me forward.

The book. I needed the book.

I turned sharply, locking eyes with Idris, my breath still ragged. "The book. It’s in our room."

Xavier shifted immediately, muscles coiling tight, energy crackling off him like a live wire. "Then why the fuck are we still standing here?"

I didn’t answer. I just ran.

The halls blurred around me, my boots pounding against stone—mine first, then theirs. My mates were close on my heels, but I barely noticed.

The castle felt different, like the walls were holding their breath. Like the Dreaming had sunk into the bones of this place and refused to leave. It made my skin crawl, made the magic under my skin itch, and burn like something was trying to get out.

By the time I reached the doors to our room, my pulse was hammering in my ears, louder than the sound of my own breath. I threw the doors open, the hinges groaning under the force. The room was still—too still—a stark contrast to the wildfire burning in my chest.

The book was there, where I’d left it in my pack, but it didn’t feel like a book anymore.

It felt like a living thing.

Like it was waiting. Watching. Aware.

I moved without thought, without breath. I dropped to my knees, pressing the torn pages against their place in the binding. The moment the edges met, the ink throbbed. Like a heartbeat. Like recognition.

The book hummed. Not a sound, but a low, insistent vibration that rattled through the floorboards, slithering up my spine. The air thinned, the temperature dropping enough that frost spiderwebbed across the nearest window.

The ink on the pages didn’t shift or rewrite itself. It had always been waiting to be whole again. It bled outward, stretching, mending the gaps where the pages had been torn.

The book drank in the magic, absorbing it like it had been starved for completion. And then the words surfaced, dark as night, sharp as carved stone.

Ancient. Older than Luxa history. Older than any magic I’d ever seen. A pulse of power shot through me, through my bones, through my blood. Through the room. Through my mates.

Deep. Black. Ancient.

Magic poured off the page, heat rising in waves, too old, too powerful to belong to anything but the Dreaming.

Xavier staggered, a hand flying to his temple. "Fuck?—"

Kian flinched, his jaw clenching. "I fucking hate when books do shit like this."

Idris didn’t move, but his golden gaze was locked on the book—watching, waiting, calculating—like the book itself had just become a threat.

I understood why. Because the words had weight to them. Like they weren’t just meant to be read. They were meant to be spoken .

And they were meant for me.

Kian’s illusions rippled to life around him, flickering like shadowed afterimages—four of him, shifting between real and unreal, instincts pulling him into defense. His jaw clenched. "I don’t fucking like this."

Xavier ran a hand down his face, muttering a string of filthy curses under his breath before snapping, "Tell me we're not walking into another one of Zamarra’s fucking traps."

Idris didn’t move. But his chest rose slowly, controlled, measured—too measured. His golden eyes had gone fully molten, his pupils sharp slits.

Rune was watching.

The spell whispered through me, spiraling into my bones.

Blood of the First. Light of the Dreaming. Show me the way.

Blood.

The truth settled in my ribs like a weight, like something final, undeniable. For the first time since Nyrah had been ripped from me, my mind was clear. There was only one way forward.

I barely noticed my own breath. Barely felt my own hands. My dagger was in my palm before I had even registered grabbing it.

Kian moved toward me, a hint of hesitation in his gaze. "Vale, wait?—"

The sharp sting of metal cut across my palm.

A sharp, clean cut. No hesitation. Blood beaded, then spilled, sliding over my palm, dripping onto the pages. The scarlet lifeblood smeared across the parchment, soaking into the coal-black ink.

The book shuddered. And then the ink moved. It didn’t just absorb the blood. It drank it. The ink twisted, curled, spread like cracks in shattered glass.

Fractures.

Then one line burned. A single point pulsed, glowing like a beacon, like a heartbeat. A location. A weak point in the Dreaming itself.

A path forward.

A door.

Kian exhaled sharply, rubbing at his temple like something had just scraped across his mind. Xavier’s fingers twitched, as if he wanted to rip the book from my hands and throw it across the room.

"And what if this is a trap?" Xavier’s voice was sharp, razor-edged.

Unflinching, I met his gaze. "Then we fucking spring it. I’m not letting her get her claws into my baby sister, and I’m not leaving Briar to that woman."

It didn’t matter if it was a trap to me. I was tired of Zamarra’s snares.

The air tightened—not like before. Not violent. Not dangerous. But watching.

The house groaned under an unseen weight, the very foundation seeming to exhale. Not collapsing. Not breaking, but bowing.

I froze. An unknown pressure settled against my skin, my lungs, and my bones. Not a hand. Not a force, but a presence. Like the Dreaming had stretched through the fractures in the map and found me.

And it knew me now.

The walls didn’t just breathe—they bent. The air crackled against my skin, a phantom pressure brushing across my arms, my throat, my chest.

Vale.

The voice wasn’t spoken. It wasn’t whispered.

It was felt.

A hum curled in the marrow of my bones, a presence pressing between the worlds, watching. Waiting.

Idris shifted closer, his hand brushing my back. His voice was steady, low, and tense. "Vale?—"

Kian swore under his breath, his illusions rippling, flickering like dying embers. "What the fuck is this? Why does it feel like?—"

Xavier snarled and lunged forward, trying to grab my arm—but something stopped him. He swore, shoving against the invisible force, his blade flashing as if he could cut through air.

"Vale, you better tell me this isn’t what it fucking looks like." His shoulders bunched, his body coiled to fight. "Of course the fucking book had to be haunted."

But it wasn’t the book.

It was me.

Kian’s illusions rippled again—but they weren’t his anymore. The Dreaming twisted them, warping them into something else, something wrong. He swore, snapping his fingers, banishing them before they could shift into nightmares.

Idris didn’t flinch. But Rune pushed forward, his presence a low, simmering heat against my skin, and gods, how I missed it.

This new presence didn’t press—it cradled. A whisper of silk sliding over my skin, enveloping my body like warmth on a wintry night. My heartbeat slowed, calmed, as I tilted my head into its touch.

The air smelled of something ancient, something impossible—moonlight and jasmine, the first breath of dawn.

A voice—soft but distant, familiar as my own in a way I couldn’t explain—filled my mind. "My daughter, my light… you have always been meant for this. You were woven from the Dreaming, Vale. You are stronger than you know. Trust what you are. Follow the path. It will lead you exactly where you are supposed to be.”

The words slid over my senses, threading through my veins, sinking into my bones. My breath hitched—not out of fear, but recognition.

Lirael.

She’d saved me once before. Had pulled me back from the void, had steadied me when I was lost. And now—I felt her. Not just in the voice threading through my senses, but in my very bones. Like I had always been meant to hear her.

She had never been absent.

I just hadn’t known how to listen.

The Dreaming wasn’t pulling me under, it was coaxing me forward. It wanted me to find the fractures. It wanted me to follow them.

And then another voice filled my mind—one I worried I’d never hear again.

Rune.

"Listen to your mother, Vale."

His voice enveloped me: steady, warm, familiar. Like the heat of a fire against winter’s bite. Like the first deep breath after a storm.

“She’s never led you wrong before.”

“Trust her.”

My breath caught as my fingers curled into fists. I wasn’t falling or losing myself. I was being shown the way. I swayed, but a pulse through the mate bond anchored me. Idris. His golden eyes locked on mine—he had felt something, but he didn’t know what.

But I would take it on my own terms. With a pulse of magic, I pushed back—not a rejection, but a promise.

"I’m coming."

The weight eased. The house exhaled again, the walls creaking, the pressure fading. The Dreaming did not vanish, but it retreated.

And it left a path in its wake.

A heavy silence fell over the room. I could feel their eyes on me. Waiting. Watching. I turned to them—calm, unwavering. "We’re leaving. Now."

Kian exchanged a quick glance with Xavier, both of them tense but resigned. Idris’ gaze held mine, searching. He knew something had happened—something just for me. But he didn’t ask.

Not yet.

Talek still watched me, his odd, color-shifting eyes burning with something unreadable. He shook his head once, more exhaling than laughing. "You don’t stop, do you?"

I met his gaze, waiting for him to challenge me. "Not when it matters. Now are you going to fight with your King or bow out while you still have a chance?"

His gaze shifted to Idris, then back to me. "Him, I could take or leave." A smirk tugged at his lips. "But you? I’ll gladly follow a goddess into battle, my Queen. Just say the word."

I turned, gripping the book tighter, the map now etched in blood and fractures.

A promise.

A destination.

A warning.

I met each of their gazes, one by one. Idris. Kian. Xavier. Talek.

“No more waiting. No more running. No more fucking games. We bring them back. One way or another. Understood?”

At their chorus of nods, I lifted my chin. "Then get your weapons."