Page 38 of Manor of Wind and Nightmares (Fae of Brytwilde #3)

Now

D aylight flooded my senses, along with the fresh scents of grass and flowers. Something soft brushed against my hand as a soothing rhythm filled my ears. It took me a moment to recognize the sounds of a flowing river, of a warm breeze rustling through the grass and the trees.

I was lying alongside the Willow River, the sun high in a cloudless blue sky.

A rabbit nuzzled against my hand, nose twitching.

I tilted my head, considering the little animal before I dared to stroke its soft grey fur.

Rather than startle or flee, it closed its eyes, letting me brush my fingers over its velvety ears and nose.

Birds twittered and flitted from branch to branch of a nearby willow whose leaves dipped into the lazily flowing river.

Everything was quiet and peaceful, without a hint of the horrors I’d just faced in the nighttime.

No vampires, no earth opening to swallow anyone whole.

No monsters or wraiths emerging from the glistening water.

Only the music of nature broke the stillness.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s you.”

It was Kaede’s voice.

I jerked into a sitting position, searching the area until I found him leaning against the willow’s trunk, half-concealed by its low-hanging branches.

He peeled himself away from it and stepped forth from the shadows, the sunlight gilding his dark hair and sparkling in his depthless eyes.

He was clothed in crisp black, his hair perfectly combed.

Hand tucked behind him, he strode toward me with an impenetrable expression.

My pulse throbbed somewhere in my throat, and my mouth dried at the sight of him.

“Where am I?” I glanced about, my mind finally beginning to recall how I’d fainted while trying to get to my sister.

“Is Callista all right?” I reached for my own shoulder as I worried about her possible injuries.

It smarted, but when I looked, there was no visible wound there or on my leg.

Though I was still clothed in the same dress I’d worn into the maze, it was pristine, as if I’d never fallen in the mud or stained my hands with blood—real or imagined.

“In a dream,” Kaede said. “And your sister is safe and well.” He reached out his hand, and I froze, trying to decipher if he meant to help me up or to use his magic against me.

Arching a brow, he offered me a half-smile.

“I would never use this part of my magic—my responsibility—against someone. Besides, you cannot sustain lasting injuries in a dream.”

Despite his words, when I reached for Kaede’s hand, I found it to be as warm and solid as it was in real life. My skin tingled at the contact.

Keeping my hand in his, the prince led me toward Willow River. Dream or not, uneasiness prickled down my spine. “I know your experiences with water have been...unpleasant. But this dream is different.”

I frowned as we paused at the bank. “How so?”

Kaede snapped his fingers and the current ceased to flow. He strode forward, wading into the water until it was up to his waist. He gestured for me. “It’s not cold, nor full of dangerous water creatures.”

My cheeks pinked in spite of myself. I knew he wasn’t trying to seduce me, and we’d been in more scandalous situations than this.

Still, I couldn’t help how self-conscious I was as I set aside my nerves and took a step into the water.

My skirts swirled around me as I trod further in, scanning the clear water to find nothing but the glistening sand at its bottom.

It wasn’t too deep, and it was surprisingly warm, almost as if I were wading into a freshly drawn bath.

But while a bath in the real world would have soothed my aching muscles and washed away the filth clinging to my body, here it seemed instead to calm my soul.

“Sit.” Kaede waved toward a smooth boulder in the middle of the river.

When I seated myself on it, the river began to course gently around me again, but it ran no higher than bathwater. I closed my eyes, relishing the sense of being in a bath, drinking in the warmth. The peace.

Peace. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d experienced it like this. It was freeing. Renewing.

I breathed deeply, no longer even troubled by the aches where I knew, somewhere far from this dreamscape, my wounds remained.

“This is your responsibility?” I murmured.

When I opened my eyes, I was unsurprised to find that this time I was in a bath—though, to my relief, still fully clothed—in a washroom unlike any I’d ever seen before.

The tub was carved of wood, looking much like an enormous tree stump hollowed out and smoothed.

Steam curled from the water, along with the relaxing aromas of vanilla and cherry blossoms. Cherry blossom petals even floated across its surface.

Throughout the room, greenery and flowers sprouted everywhere—vines growing along the ceiling, shrubbery decorating the walls, and violets adorning the spaces between the floor tiles.

My heart skipped a beat at the sight, recalling the violet he’d once offered me, back when I’d thought he was simply Captain Junseo and he’d thought I was Princess Briar.

But had the flowers appeared because of what they meant to me , since this was my healing dream, or because of what they meant to him , because he was also in control of it?

Kaede didn’t speak, just settled a hand on my shoulder.

Something changed, the weight on my heart easing even further, as if he were leaching every ounce of guilt and sorrow and horror from the night away.

“Being the heir to the spring kingdom means offering life to mortals and immortals who are in need. By soothing their inner wounds.”

I frowned in thought. “Inner wounds?”

“Emotional turmoil. Mental distress. Guilt. Grief.”

“By entering others’ dreams?”

“I don’t get to choose whose dreams I find myself in. This Willowbark magic...we are drawn to whoever needs us.” His tone was flat, as if he were forcing the words out.

The smallest sense of discomfort stole over me, one that I refused to let Kaede take from me.

Instead, I stood from the bath and—perhaps because it was my dream, or perhaps because Kaede’s magic was conjuring whatever I needed to feel most comfortable—I found a warm towel already waiting for me.

I wrapped my sodden dress in it and turned away, not wanting to meet Kaede’s expression.

Knowing that his magic was forcing him to tend to me, that he was only taking my pain out of a sense of obligation, was almost worse than the initial guilt that had drawn him to me.

Tears burned my eyes.

My thoughts distracted me so that I didn’t hear Kaede approach. “What did you see in that maze?” A hint of tenderness edged his tone.

“I was shown an illusion that looked like...like my sister.” My throat tightened.

There was a pause, heavy with meaning.

“Like she was dead? You thought you’d lost her.”

Nodding, I choked on a sob.

As if his tender nature couldn’t help himself despite the chasm between us, Kaede reached for me, gently combing his fingers through my hair.

The sensation sent pleasant ripples over my scalp and down the back of my neck, loosening the tension in my muscles and steadying my breathing.

Without even thinking about it, I tipped my head back, leaning into his touch. Craving it. Craving him .

“The uhgmil debilitate their prey by consuming them with vivid hallucinations of their greatest fears before they eat them. Anything that comes within range of their magic can fall under their influence. Sometimes they plague members of our own court who wander too close to the maze they took residence within, and so my father and his court began a habit of sending criminals and enemies into the maze as sacrifices.”

I repressed a shudder. Kaede’s nimble fingers threaded through my hair, twisting and playing with it, taking away some of the horror of his revelation.

“They don’t care if anyone but their winner survives, do they?” I asked.

“Using the competitors as sacrifices was not part of the contest that I agreed to, and why I was able to interfere.”

I squeezed my eyes closed. “For Laura.”

“She was lost in a hallucination. You pulled yourself free to defend yourself. Your mind found the flaws in the creature’s illusion. But the emotional damage lingered enough to bring me here, into your dream.” There was bitterness in Kaede’s tone, even as he continued to play with my hair.

“Will I remember this, when I wake?” I whispered.

“I don’t know. I’ve never communed with those I’ve visited afterward before to be able to find out.”

“But you will remember?”

Kaede’s voice dipped lower. He pressed his lips against my ear. “I always remember you, princess.”

I shivered involuntarily. Kaede’s fingers twisted in my hair, toying with the damp strands, winding them into a braid. “Even when I don’t want to,” he added.

He gently tugged on my hair, angling my face toward him.

“I want to believe that you aren’t going to try to kill me.

” Kaede didn’t move away, instead slipping an arm around my waist, holding me to him.

His forehead rested against my neck, his breath tickling my skin. “I want to think you’ve changed.”

His closeness made my breath hitch. In my dream, he couldn’t harm me, but that could change as soon as I awoke.

Because of this, I knew on some level I should have been afraid of him.

After all, he was a powerful fae with strong magic who’d come back from the dead with revenge in his heart.

And yet I couldn’t forget the tender man I’d met.

Whatever darkness had consumed him in death, it hadn’t swallowed up his heart. Not fully.

“You drive me mad,” he muttered. “I don’t know if I can believe anything you say—if who you truly are is the woman I knew before or if everything was a carefully crafted ploy.

I don’t know why your face, your true face, torments me in my dreams. You’re far more beautiful than Briar could ever hope to be.

..and that makes you far more dangerous.

I don’t know what to think. What to trust. What to want .

I don’t know if I want to kiss you or kill you. ”

With a deep breath, he pried himself away and twisted me to face him, cupping my chin with his free hand so my gaze met his.

“But I already made the mistake of trusting you before, sweet torment.” His eyes flared with commingling desire and warning as they dipped toward my lips.

“And I am not in the mood to be betrayed again.”

A breeze rustled through the room, chilly and at odds with the comfort of my dream. Kaede’s eyes seemed to blacken further. As he stepped nearer, the wind strengthened, feeling more like grasping fingers preparing to trap me or throw me backward.

“You know,” he said, his voice pitching low and sounding husky despite the threat in it, “sometimes, I think the darkness will overtake me completely and make me like the creatures I conjure from my nightmares. That, thanks to you, I brought a piece of death back with me.”

Kaede leaned forward, his mouth tilting not toward my own, but toward my neck.

I gasped as his teeth scraped against my throat, followed by the warmth of his tongue.

My eyelids fluttered closed. What madness had possessed me, that I wanted this?

He couldn’t hurt me here, but what if he acted this way when I was awake too?

What if his teeth sank into me the way the vampire’s had when it tore open Verity’s throat?

Even in a dream, I told myself that logically, I should have kept my distance.

All I was doing was hurting myself by letting him touch me.

And yet I couldn’t move, locked in the fae prince’s grasp as his lips, teeth, and tongue worked their way down my neck and along my collarbone.

My skin was too hot; my mind and heart screamed at me in a constant battle between what I wanted and what I knew to be true.

It felt as if ages and yet no time at all had passed when Kaede pulled away, his expression indecipherable.

For one long, aching moment, we stared into each other’s eyes.

My lips parted as if to say something, but I knew not what.

I was breathless, and all the earlier peace I’d been relishing had melted into an aching longing that could not be satisfied, for he could never be mine.

His fingers slipped away from my chin and settled around my throat, where my pulse beat erratically.

“You cannot hurt me here,” I reminded him, even though he didn’t squeeze, didn’t seem to want to harm me.

“Do you hope to win?” His face was unreadable, studying mine intently.

I licked my lips, and Kaede tracked the movement. “My only hope is to survive and get my sister safely back home. But you could kill me when I wake. I’m at your mercy, as long as I’m in Willowbark.”

“You care deeply for your sister.”

“I already told you that I made my bargain with King Wystan to protect my family.”

“You have a great capacity to love, and so much kindness. At least, for your family. But did you ever care for me? Or was it all part of your need to get close enough to assassinate me?”

“Of course I cared for you—I told you this,” I breathed.

“If you do not trust the word of a human, trust this: when I first met you, I thought you were only Captain Junseo. I never suspected you were the prince, or that making you fall for me was even a possibility, let alone a way to get me closer to Prince Kaede.” My throat ached with unshed tears.

“I didn’t want to fall for you, because I knew what I had to do.

I tried to fight against it, and I failed. ”

Kaede was silent for a long time. I listened to the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears, my own breath rattling through me like an invalid in their sickbed, all because of the effect he had on me.

When he finally moved his hand again, he brushed it against my cheek briefly. His mouth opened like he wanted to say something else—and then he stepped away. “I’ve done what I must. This dream must end. Wake up, sweet torment.”