Page 16

Her feet were bare, smudged with dirt from the garden and tracking prints on the floor.

The hem of her pale mint-green dress was stained, and a stray leaf clung to a loose thread where she’d been kneeling in the soil.

Anyone else would have seemed atrociously disheveled, but she appeared wild and untamed in a way that matched her spirit.

But her eyes were rimmed red. Cloudy with the sorrow she refused to share.

It rose in silent moments when Astoria was alone.

Some days she ambled into the library for her lessons, listless and unmoored.

Driftwood floating endlessly at sea before meeting a watery grave.

Sometimes servants reported seeing her float through the castle’s garden as aimless as a phantom on the wind.

In sweeter moments, she turned to me the same way a flower would look to the sun.

Bright and hopeful, undeterred by the melancholy clinging to her like grime in her darkest hours.

I would bathe her in solace and alleviate the shadows of woe darkening her radiant eyes. If only she would confide in me.

Astoria slumped into the chair across my desk, melting into the worn leather as if she might merge with the wingback seat.

A muddled contrast to the innate grace she carried herself with.

And the dark circles under her eyes worsened the gloomy energy hanging around her, dragging her to the ground.

She curled into herself, blinking back an influx of tears.

She twirled a wilted flower between her fingers. A secondary action, as if she barely realized she was doing it.

An ache punched through my chest. Hundreds of horrid scenarios flashed through my mind.

“Has something happened?” She winced and glanced up. Recognition cleared the fog from her eyes as she stared blankly at me for several minutes. I adjusted some scrolls and books on my desk to fill the silence as she collected herself.

“I’m not sure,” she sighed. A single petal escaped from the flower she twirled, descending in a slow spiral to the floor. “I never dreamed until I came to Infernus.”

“Is that so?”

“Hm,” she hummed in answer. I got the sense her mind and body were divorced, flowing on differing frequencies. “I’m not supposed to dream.”

Everyone dreamed. I couldn’t be convinced otherwise.

“What do you mean?” I probed. Astoria was so guarded when I voiced questions about her or her past. A locked puzzle, defying every attempt I made to solve it. Only her body willingly responded to me .

She unfurled herself from the chair, dropping her wilted flower on the edge of my desk as she passed.

Her breath fogged the window where she halted, staring out at the wretched wasteland of my kingdom.

A land of bleak skies, corrupted creatures, and desolation.

I wondered what she saw when she looked out below.

“It’s hard to remember now. Sometimes it feels like I’m always dreaming.” Astoria drew lines in the condensation, finger squeaking on the glass. Her hand flopped to her side. “Always dreaming. Always, always dreaming,” she mumbled under her breath. A mindless mantra that twisted my insides.

She seemed… lost.

“I am going to die,” she whispered.

Wood clattered on the ground as I shot up from my chair.

“Astoria—”

“I will die. This body is dying. I am afraid of it. More afraid of this body than I was of…” She trailed off.

“Astoria.” Her arm was warm and soft under my palm. She flinched at my touch, only relaxing when her large, sad eyes flicked up to my face. “What is the meaning of this? What dreams?”

“Nightmares. They… they come to me in the dark and cause me a pain I have no words to explain.” She placed a hand on her chest, over her heart. Her brows furrowed. “I am out of reach. Far away. Now that I’m a… Now that I’m here, ever ything has changed. And these dreams don’t leave me.”

I pulled her closer, and she tipped her head to meet my gaze.

My tail swept over the floor, swiping around my legs to tease her ankles.

Providing comfort wasn’t a natural instinct for me.

I only reached for her, rubbed my hands over her arms, because I wanted to physically reach within her and remove her agony.

“Do you fear your dreams, Astoria?” I brushed a curlier strand of her sky-blue hair over her shoulder and caught her pulse ratchet in her throat as I did. Color returned to her cheeks by way of a pale pink flush.

She caught my wrist. My ribs squeezed my internal organs.

Her hands were so dainty compared to mine, yet she didn’t balk or shy away from my claws.

Determined, with a weak smile lifting her lips, she placed my hand on her cheek.

A shuddered exhale punched out of me when she nuzzled her face into my hand and exhaled her lingering tension.

“I do not fear my dreams of you.” Her sapphire eyes tore me asunder and shattered my foundation. She had no idea how seductive she looked right now, as innocent as she was. “And I… I dream of you often.”