Page 155 of I Dream of Dragons

I keep my gaze down, ignoring everyone and everything, until I’m sure their steps have faded in the distance.

Then I turn around, trying to orient myself, heading toward the infirmary.

Enough of this hide and seek with the king, of him pulling the strings. I’ve found my soul mate and I need to be with him. I run down the passages, noting this parlor and that, dredging up vague memories of passing through this wing of the palace, turn a corner?—

And crash into a wall.

No, not a wall. A tall, muscular man with a chest like steel. A tall, dark-haired man with black blooms on his pale cheeks.

“Phaethon,” I whisper.

“Fuck, look at you, beautiful,” he breathes, and I can’t help the sudden smile curling my lips.

It’s not Phaethon.

“Jai!” I gasp, and some of the tension leaves his face. His dark eyes brighten, filling with sparks, yet his face looks pale and his cheeks hollow. “You have to stop walking out of the infirmary against the healers’ orders. You have to rest and get better.”

“I’m all better for seeing you.” His hands cup my face, calluses scraping over my cheeks, and my eyes half-close in pleasure. The bond hums in my chest. In my heart. “I was told the king is expecting us.”

“I’m not going. I had Remi create a distraction and came to find you.”

His frown lingers for a moment, then clears. The corners of his eyes crinkle. His mouth twitches. “Did you, now?”

“Yes. I want to be with you.”

His smile is wistful. “Gods, I wish I could just take you away from here. Fly away with you, go to the ends of the earth. Build you a tower there.”

Fly away from this accursed palace and its puppet master king, away from the arena and the intrigue, away from the sea queen. Be with Mars, at long last.

A second chance at happiness.

“But what about the world?” I whisper, and something in his gaze cracks.

The dream shatters and crumbles, and behind it rises a wall of fury and sorrow.

“This world failed you,” he says evenly. The sparks in his gaze fade, leaving behind a hardness I’m not used to seeing there. “Asit failed me, too, fought me as I was trying to save it, but now… It’s probably too late. He put his mark on you and made himself invulnerable.”

“What’s wrong?” I whisper.

A harsh bark of laughter. “You should leave this place. Don’t let the king use me against you.”

I shake my head. “Not going anywhere without you.”

“Don’t let him use you against the world you hold so dear, then. I’m remembering… things. Some memories are coming back.”

Eagerly, I wait for more. “What have you remembered?”

“Broken fragments, but… I fell through a gate, after swallowing Phaethon during the battle before the Last Reversal, in the otherworld.”

“Mars,” I whisper. “Marsyas. One and the same.”

“Athdara Marsyas of the house of Dikerotes, the ancient king. The great king of old who took the Eosphor Phaethon, the bright one, inside him. Who fell through the gate into this world.”

Gods…“What else?”

“Little Thorn…” He grabs my hand and pulls me after him. “Let’s find a more private place to talk.”

Good idea. After all, Remi’s distraction can only last so long.