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Influence the Realm

EMILIA

T he world outside my window was silent and blanketed in white. December in the mountains always meant snow.

I’d spent most of my days sitting in the window, watching the snowfall. The house backed onto a forest, and my room had a bay window with a panoramic view of the woods. A rope hanging from the tree in our yard swayed in the breeze. It used to be a tire swing. I couldn’t remember ever playing on it, though.

I hugged my knees to my chest, a cup of tea steaming in front of me, fogging up the lower half of the window.

Thirty-six days.

Thirty-six days since I’d seen the inside of Luna Academy. Thirty-six days since I’d faced off with the High Lord himself. Thirty-six days since my spirit had been completely, utterly broken.

My mother, to her credit, had sensed it. She’d been waiting for me in the Sacred Temple when I returned from—from wherever the hell the Luminary had taken me to see Aries Vanderbilt. She hadn’t needed to go out of her way to convince me to come home. I’d fallen into her arms as tears poured down my cheeks and begged her to take me.

I hadn’t said goodbye to anyone and as soon as I’d arrived here. I’d stayed in touch briefly with Destiny via my blackmirror, but after I saw the posts about Jedidiah’s Stone’s funeral , I couldn’t take the treachery. They’d had a full-on wake for him on Moonrise Blvd. Lord Aries Vanderbilt had given a eulogy in front of the entire Celestial Society, faking tears and grief for his son who was still very much alive.

Before I was even finished reading the article, my blackmirror had frozen over and combusted into a thousand pieces.

I had no plans of returning to LA. I couldn’t. To my surprise, my mother didn’t oppose this.

Esmeralda Morningstar was a closed book. A mystery even to me, the daughter she was fond of. Now and then I would be bold enough to ask her a question, to which she would shoot me down and banish me to ignorance.

In thirty-six days, we had not talked about my sister, save for the one time I asked about her two weeks ago and she’d told me no one had seen or heard from her at all. I had pressed on, eager and desperate to know more and like a viper, she’d lashed out —hissed that she would not ‘put energy into this’.

So I sat and watched the snowfall. My tea went cold.

It was nearly midnight when I ran myself a bath, the same as every night. Since coming home, I couldn’t sleep for the life of me. Insomnia ruled my nighttime hours this last month, while back at Luna Academy, my friend was trapped in eternal sleep.

The irony was not lost on me.

I’d taken to filling the bath with the hottest water I could stand and adding lavender sprigs and essential oils, in hopes that the heady aroma would quell my ever-spinning mind. It never really worked, but it was better than nothing.

I sank into the water, sighing as it enveloped me. I’d left the window open and pale moon rays spilled into the room on a cold breeze, serving as the only light. Candles made me too sad. I couldn’t look at a flame without weeping.

I stayed in the water until it went cold, and long after. It had to be nearing two in the morning as I finally rose, wrapped myself in a towel, and stepped out of the tub, water droplets falling to the chilly floor. Looking in the mirror, I could hardly see my reflection. The moon had left the part of the sky outside the window, so I was relying only on my darkness-adjusted eyes.

The girl looking back at me was pale, shrouded in shadows. I leaned in closer, drawn to her.

Her features began to morph. From pale to dark. Straight hair to a fiasco of springy curls.

Suddenly I realized it was Natalia’s face who smiled wrongly at me from behind the glass.

I opened my mouth to scream, but her hand flew out and grabbed the back of my neck before I could make a sound. She yanked me forward into the glass, which shattered under the impact of my face. Pain exploded through my skull as the world flipped upside down and I plummeted into a pit of black before I landed with a harsh splat onto a familiar wooden floor.

Pain and memory drained from me. I stood up, woozy. I was in the hallway. Was I dreaming? Sleepwalking?

I rubbed my head. Glanced around. The house looked mostly the same.

Voices from down the hall made me frown. Mother was usually up all night, but it sounded like she had company.

I followed the voices. They were coming from my room.

There was a sign on my door. Messy, child-like handwriting, “ KEEP OUT—NYX AND EMILIA ONLY!!! ”

Confused, I pushed through the door and stepped into my childhood bedroom. Half a dozen women in silver robes filled the room. Their faces were fuzzy. My mother was one of them, pacing frantically.

“These burns are too severe,” a grave voice said. “She will be horribly scarred no matter what we do.”

They were surrounding someone on the bed. The room was too packed for me to see their face.

My mother whimpered. Then, desperately, she said, “What about Sanguis Ritus?”

The room fell silent.

“It is forbidden,” one of the silver-robed women warned.

“For good reason,” another said.

“She is my daughter. Look at her! Oh, Goddess.” My mother sobbed. “I cannot leave her to suffer like this.”

Panic spilled over in every one of my cells. I stepped forward. “What’s going on?”

No one turned to look at me.

I moved closer and spoke louder. “Hey! I said, what is going on?”

Not a single one of them even flinched. It was as if I didn’t exist.

My heart should have been thundering but I felt nothing. Only cold and confused. My eyes swept over the room. It began to quiver and shake, the walls getting further away.

“Emilia,” a smooth, accented voice called to me from somewhere in the rising wind.

I whirled, stunned. I was now standing in a giant stadium.

How had I gotten here? I couldn’t recall, but there were hundreds of people taking up the place. Rows and rows of them lined up like soldiers. Their expressions were all dead and blank, their eyes blacked out. I knew instantly that they were all wrong—evil. Yet I felt no fear as I walked through them, taking in each face. None of them flinched or turned when I passed them. They remained still as statues, gazing into nothing with their black void eyes.

“Emilia,” the voice called again.

I knew that voice. I loved that voice. Wanted to wrap myself in it like a shawl.

With that thought, the world changed again. The shadow people were erased, a new canvas drawing itself around me. A forest, silent in the dead of night. I hugged my arms around myself and trudged forward, kicking up leaves and twigs. The darkness came alive, coiling and whispering, begging for my attention. I paid it no mind. I followed the voice through the frightening dead woods. Only the Goddess knew for how long.

Cool light spilled through the branches of the bony, disfigured trees. I glanced up and gasped in shock. The moon was huge—bigger than I had ever seen it—beaming brilliant silver and blue.

Stumbling upon a clearing where the moon shone the brightest, I stopped. A single tree with a little house built into it rose up in the center of the cleared space. The tree’s leaves were blood red, its trunk and branches the color of sand. Candlelight and shadows danced inside the tree house.

“Hello?” I called.

No response.

I moved forward anyway, compelled by something outside of myself. Standing next to the pale tree, the rope ladder swayed. I dared to grab it and climb up.

Heaving myself inside, I landed ineptly on a cold stone floor.

The most beautiful boy I had ever seen waited for me.

He stood tall with a dark blue cloak wrapped around his shoulders and pooling around his feet. Atop his mass of curly brown hair, sat a silver crown. A crown forged of dreams and secrets, finished with a cluster of sapphire stars gleaming front and center.

A brilliant stained glass window splayed behind him, enormous and too profound for my brain to take in right now.

We weren’t in a tree house—we were in a castle. An old, forgotten castle hidden in the corner of the Goddess’s eye.

I stood up while the prince chewed the silver ring through his lip, staring at me with big dark eyes. I knew those eyes—from another life. “You found me.”

“I did?” I breathed.

“Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get you here?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Has it been very long?”

“It has.” The prince stepped closer, curiosity shining in his gaze as he raked it over me. “Do you know me?”

“You’re…” I trailed off. It was on the tip of my tongue. I knew him. I just couldn’t place him right now.

My gaze fell to my fingers, which looked thin and strange as they fidgeted. I noticed I was wearing a long dress the color of his cloak. I did not remember putting it on. Even my getting here was becoming a blur.

“What did you see before you found your way here?”

Visions danced in my mind, fuzzy and elusive. I thought hard. Silver robes, a bed… Something else…

“I don’t know.”

The prince’s expression turned melancholic. “Emilia, you need to come back.”

“I can’t,” I answered with a sob. The words came out involuntarily. I hadn’t meant to say them, and I didn’t know what they meant, yet I knew they were true.

“It’s all lost without you.”

I shook my head. This conversation was sad. I didn’t like sad things.

He didn’t say anything else. He only studied me, and I felt forbidden parts of myself light up. Looking at him changed things—changed me. He was so lovely, I had to move closer. With my step, the atmosphere shifted. The castle walls whirred along with my sudden movement. The prince’s arms caught me instinctively as I collided with his chest. I sighed happily, breathing him in as I rested my cheek over his heart.

After a moment, he grabbed my shoulders to push me slightly, holding me at arm’s length. A fathomless expanse of stars reigned over us now. We stood on a stone terrace somewhere up high. A turret of the castle? I didn’t know or care.

“Emilia.” He murmured my name like a prayer and I inhaled sharply at the sound. “You should not be able to influence the realm like this.”

“I shouldn’t?” I peered around, my mind too lazy to take in many details. I thought I saw the ocean, maybe crashing against some jagged rocks.

“Especially when you’re not even fully lucid.” The prince’s eyes fell to my lips. “Do you remember me?”

“Not entirely…” I whispered, taking in every detail of his features. Thick, long lashes. Plump lips, left bottom side pierced. I pushed a dark curl from his face. “But I know you.”

He swallowed and nodded. “Yes.”

“I am fond of you.”

He choked a laugh.

“I want to kiss you.”

That shameless confession made the prince flinch. He was momentarily speechless before stuttering, “We—no, we shouldn’t. When you remember, we—”

I crushed my lips to his, completely wanton, snuffing out his words. For a beat, he ceased to react. He’d turned to stone under me, his jaw gone slack as my tongue slid through his lips. That ignited a groan from deep in his chest and then he was mine.

A nameless, faceless creature in the deepest pits of my soul burst free, possessing me with ravenous desire. A desire that had been shunned into dormancy for far too long.

The sounds he made had my belly in hot, tight knots. I flung my head back, to let him kiss my throat. I held onto him for dear life as his lips explored my neck and clavicles, one hand squeezing my thigh, the other nested in the back of my hair.

It all happened so fast, like a whirlwind or a tidal wave.

My back hit a soft bed and he was everywhere. Our kisses were frantic and desperate, and our hands too. We descended into a clash of skin and tongues and gasps. I couldn’t remember when we’d shed our clothes but now he was naked on top of me. Between my thighs, right where he belonged. He had the most magnificent shoulders. I wanted to lick them. His eyes were hooded and full of heat and—fear. Fear? I didn’t understand. He took in the sight of me under him, my bare breasts as they heaved in anticipation.

“Please,” I moaned.

“ Emilia .” His voice was a ragged plea. “You’re doing this. We can’t—not like this.”

I frowned. I yanked him by the back of the neck, trying to pull him down to kiss me. He leaned back, shaking his head.

“You need to wake up,” he begged.

I hated those words. I growled in protest, and ground my core against him, desperate for more friction. I wanted him. There was nothing else to me but this. I needed to be closer—to claw my way into his skin and curl up in the cage of his ribs, guarding his heart like a dragon.

“Wake up, Emilia.”

The words were like bullets to my chest.

“ Wake up .”

A harsh gasp sailed between my lips as I jolted upright, freezing water sloshing around me and over the edge of the tub.

My heart thundered wildly, matching the throb between my thighs.

The bathroom was dark and silent, save for the jostled water. My hands shook violently as I gripped the porcelain edges of the bathtub.

For several moments, I sat in the water, stunned. The dream faded with each passing second. I battled the wave of amnesia, desperate to hold onto it.

Michael.

When I finally rose and looked out the window, dawn burned on the horizon.

Before I left the bathroom, I dared to glance in the mirror and could have sworn I saw Natalia grinning back at me for half a second. With one blink, she was gone, and there was only me and my haunted expression.