Page 171 of I Dream of Dragons

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

JAI

My heart is stabbing at my fucking ribs. I stand on the low terrace, gripping the stone balustrade, looking out at the sea and sky. I keep looking outward, as if that will stop the Godsdamned memories and spinning thoughts.

Funny. Phaethon isn’t even howling anymore. I can’t blame him for this dread.

She had really died. Killed by the fae king. I’d felt it back then, felt the bond wrenching, cracking.

“I was killed first before I was thrown into the sea.”

Should I have guessed she was still alive, since my heart went on beating? But I’d felt the bond sever, I’d felt her gone. I’d felt my soul shrivel and die.

I was broken.

My memories of those first years are mired in gray fog. Hells, of the firstdecadesafter I lost her. You might say I hadn’t known her for that long. Only a few months. But I fell in love with her, felt the fated bond click between us and I knew I was the luckiest man alive.

Then the voices in my head started.

And it all went downhill.

I remember the massacre… Fuck me, I do, but in glimpses. The images cut through me like blades.

I lean over the balustrade, struggling to draw a breath. What exactly happened that day? I’m drowning in recovered memories, but all I see from that day is blood.

Did the king kill her family? Did Phaethon take over me and finish the job? But why would he? What am I missing in the writhing mass of memories coming at me? They feel like snakes snapping at me. Like a dragon’s fucking maw threatening to swallow me whole.

Memories stretching over months, weeks, and days. Memories of small things like watching draks fly against the darkening sky, eating thick soup, smelling the green grass. Memories of bigger things like holding her hand and kissing her, touching her body, feeling Phaethon stir for the first time… feeling her death.

They come in random order. I have to piece a storyline together, a timeline, see how they fit into the puzzle of my life.

Meanwhile, familiar whispers wind inside my head. Phaethon is muttering about dragons and basilisks and caves and graves.

I always thought he was crazy—a madman to drive me mad along with him, spitting raving mad—but now I’m not entirely sure anymore. I pay closer attention and I think he’s talking about the events leading to the Last Reversal, about the battle the Eosphors fought against the dragons.

Damn.I should be able to remember that. I was there, wasn’t I? Isortof remember it in splashes of images, sounds and horror. So many memories are filtering back and they don’t always make sense.

I’m not fucking sure I want to see them play out, but there is no escaping them. More images flash behind my eyes.

I feel wrung out. Various wounds ache all over my body, and the mark spread over my chest and stomach burns. Something… something has changed. Somewhere deep inside of me, something has shifted. A cover was lifted, freeing a power I didn’t recall having.

Raising a hand to my cheekbone, I rub at the marks there. They itch. My shadows seem to pulse in time to my thumping heart. The rhythm accelerates. I can’t catch my breath. My stomach cramps and I swallow back bile. I look at the sea and I see double, images overlaying reality.

Houses buried in water. Corpses. Trees with only branches showing over the surface. It’s a scene after a Reversal, that complete disaster and desolation, that stench of death and rot, then… a woman’s face, grave and beautiful in the low light, regarding me through dark eyes.

“Are you sure about this?” she asks. “Is there no other way?”

The sorrow in my heart is real. Not because I’m in love with her but because she is dear to me and I… have to leave.

Leave this world.

I wanted to believe that it’s not true, that I’m not Marsyas, some half-forgotten heroic king from another world, but I can’t. Not anymore. The memories may still be a jumbled mess but I remember another life.

Various other lives.

Three souls…

Now it’s starting to make sense.