Page 41

41

DAIN

T he cave is silent.

Liora sits near the fire, her back turned to me, her body tense. She hasn't spoken since she returned. Her breathing is too slow, too measured, as if she’s trying to convince herself she’s in control. But I can feel it, something is wrong.

The bond between us thrums with agitation, a pulse of energy coursing in my veins that isn’t my own. It’s hers. Or at least, it should be hers.

I watch her from the shadows, my claws flexing against the rock. “What did you see out there?”

She doesn’t turn.

A slow exhale escapes me, sharp with impatience. “Liora.”

She flinches at the sound of her name. Not much. Just a twitch of her fingers. Barely noticeable, but I see it.

I push off the wall, stalking toward her. “What. Did. You. See.”

This time, she moves. Just slightly, her head tilting to the side, but she still won’t look at me. Won’t answer. The fire crackles between us, sending flickering light across her face.

The silence is unbearable.

“You’re avoiding the question,” I growl. “And I don’t like it.”

Her fingers tighten in her lap. I don’t miss how pale her knuckles have become, how her breathing has subtly shifted. She’s trying to hide something from me, and it’s not working.

The bond pulses again. The longer she refuses to answer, the worse it gets. It feels like she’s sinking inside me, pressing into me from the inside out.

A whisper.

Not spoken aloud. Not from her lips. But I hear it. In my head.

Dain.

I freeze.

She still hasn’t looked at me. Still hasn’t moved.

Another whisper. Closer. More insistent.

Dain.

My jaw clenches, my wings tensing behind me. This isn’t possible. She isn’t speaking, but I can hear her.

I move toward her. “Liora,” I say carefully, low and dangerous.

Her shoulders rise. “I—” She stops herself, exhaling roughly. “I don’t know.”

Liar.

I don’t need the bond to tell me that. The way she grips her arms, like she’s holding herself together, she’s unraveling.

“I don’t believe you.”

She turns on me then, finally. Her eyes flash in the firelight, and I feel it again, that flicker of something that doesn’t belong to her. Something old. Something wrong.

Something that makes my instincts scream.

I reach for her wrist. She jerks away. “Don’t touch me,” she hisses.

I snarl. “What the hell is happening to you?”

She presses her hands to her temples, breathing too fast now. “I don’t know,” she grits out, voice shaking. “I—It’s like—” She groans, shutting her eyes, her whole body shuddering.

The whispers change.

They’re not just in my head anymore. They’re in the cave. Around us.

They’re not hers.

My wings flare as the temperature drops. The fire flickers, shrinking as a heavy presence slithers between us.

I whirl, searching the shadows, but nothing is there. Just an emptiness that wasn’t there before.

I hear it.

A language I don’t understand. Ancient. Twisting. Wrong.

I snap my gaze back to her.

She’s standing now. But she’s not looking at me.

She’s looking past me. At nothing. At something.

She’s speaking. But they are not her words.

The sound curdles in my ears, like a song played in reverse, like a prayer meant for something unholy. My claws dig into my palms as I take a step closer.

“Liora.”

She doesn’t hear me.

Another step.

The world tilts. Not the cave. Not reality.

My mind.

A vision slams into me with the force of a thousand lifetimes.

Darkness. A cold floor. Chains biting into my wrists.

I can’t move.

A woman stands before me. Cloaked in light, but her face is hidden.

A voice, familiar and foreign at the same time.

“Forgive me,” she whispers. “You were never meant for this.”

Pain explodes through me. Magic surges over my skin, into my bones, through my soul.

I roar. I fight.

But she doesn’t stop.

She binds me. Seals me.

I realize this isn’t the first time she’s done it.

This is the second.

The third.

The hundredth.

I slam back into the present, gasping. My knees hit the ground, my claws gouging into stone. My lungs heave for air, but my body feels wrong.

Like something was just taken from me.

Or worse, returned.

“Dain?”

Her voice is soft. Too soft.

I snap my head up and freeze.

She stands over me.

Eyes glowing.

Not hers. Not Liora’s.

Amara’s.

My breath catches, the past and present overlapping, colliding, tearing me apart.

I reach for my dagger. I don’t think. I react.

A snarl rips from my throat. “What are you? What do you think your doing?”

Liora gasps, just for a moment. Then she blinks.

The glow is gone.

She staggers back, shaking her head, touching her face as if she, too, felt it.

Her lips part, but nothing comes out.

I rise slowly, my every muscle coiled and trembling, my claws aching with the need to strike. To end whatever this is before it’s too late.

But I don’t.

Because as I stare at her, at the way she stares back at me with fear and something else.

I realize something.

She’s terrified too.

If she’s afraid, then she doesn’t understand it either.

Which means whatever is happening to her, is happening to us both.

I have no idea how to stop it.