Page 11

KYRIE

I wake up sweating. Something was calling my name.

I’m sure of it.

My heart hammers in my chest, and I try to get comfortable despite the heat and heavy blankets.

By Sola’s left ass cheek, I’m so sweaty.

My eyes fly open.

Sweaty, and with a hot, sweaty body nestled up against mine. Muscular arms are curled around me, a heavy leg tossed over my hip, another leg between mine pinning me to the bed.

The Sword—no, fucking Hrakan—is naked, holding me tight, eyelids twitching in sleep.

My mouth feels dry, sandy almost, like I drank too much wine last night, but the last thing I remember, I was…

Oof. My eyes squeeze shut.

It hurts to think about where I last remember being. In the hallway, unable to function, unable to do anything but listen to the strange voice calling to me.

I frown.

A voice, calling to me. Isn’t that what woke me up?

“Good, you’re finally awake. Get up and come get me out of here. I’ve been waiting long enough, don’t you think?”

Stiffening, I stare at the so-called god wrapped around me, but he hasn’t done more than breathe.

“He’s asleep. Hurry up.”

Do all newly, er, turned Fae hear disembodied voices? Am I losing what’s left of my mind?

“Don’t make me burn down this entire castle, golden tongue.”

I blink, torn between waking Hrakan up or listening to whatever my hallucination is telling me.

The thought of waking Hrakan is much worse than the alternative, and waking up in his arms just makes me sick to my stomach. Sick because this is what I thought I wanted. Sick because maybe it could have been, if I trusted him at all.

If I lie here much longer, I might just Hrakan up all over him.

Heh.

A grim smile stretches my lips. I’ll have to remember to make that joke as often as possible just to piss him off.

“If you want to make your mate angry, then hurry up and get down here.”

Well, that decides me.

Carefully, I try to wriggle out of my so-called mate’s grasp.

It’s harder than it should be, what with all that exposed skin. Not to mention his cock, which is annoyingly erect and even more annoyingly very much pressed up against me.

“ Roll ,” the voice suggests, and there’s a decidedly impatient note to it.

Fine. I do as it says because I’m certainly not going to keep letting this asshole snuggle me. A pang goes through me, and I do my best to ignore it.

Why look at silver-haired problems in the moonlight when you can listen to your grumpy auditory hallucination instead, I’ve always said!

Finally, I manage to roll all the way out of his grasp, which means I’m teetering on the very edge of the bed. Letting momentum carry me, I keep going, managing to catch myself on my hands and toes as I hit the floor.

“Took you long enough. I was starting to think maybe you’d take advantage of your situation.”

Hardly , I think furiously. Of course my hallucination has a mean streak. I couldn’t hallucinate something nice, could I? Nope, had to have an imaginary asshole.

“Just because I’m in your head doesn’t mean I’m imaginary.”

I stand quietly for a long moment, trying to catch my breath and shake off the deep sense of foreboding pervading my thoughts.

One glance at Hrakan, god of death and named in honor of the noise cats make when they puke, convinces me to listen to my hallucination.

What could go wrong? Can’t get much worse than what I’ve been through!

The voice harrumphs in my head, insinuating that there is, in fact, plenty worse, and I decide to ignore that thought.

I don’t really feel like disassociating again at the moment.

I shiver.

There’s a pair of soft leggings on a chair in the corner, and I pull them on, only slightly surprised to realize they must be meant for me, considering they fit. All my feelings are muted, numbed out; even the realization that he was holding me tight doesn’t register on the same scale it normally would.

Which would probably worry me, if I was feeling normal.

It feels like a dream, though.

A suede vest easily laces over a tunic, the leggings go on quickly, and I tug the boots on next. My fingers grow colder by the second, a reminder that this isn’t a dream, no matter how strange I feel.

My footsteps are quiet and sure as I walk to the door, and when it clicks open before my fingers make contact with the handle, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Still, I keep walking, my body at ease despite the niggling sensation that something isn’t quite right.

The corridors of his castle are empty, cleaner than I remember, not a speck of dust. Outside, past a wavy pane of glass, the moon hanging high in an inkblot sky tells me it’s late. I have no idea how many people live in this castle, but they’re all likely asleep right now, which suits me just fine.

My throat tightens at the mere idea of having to make more small talk.

“Small talk is overrated. Don’t worry yourself. No one will bother you soon enough,” the voice says.

It’s ominous, and I should stop, but my feet keep moving, the pull of the voice propelling me forward.

Every stride takes me closer to the insistent urging of the voice, and it seems that I blink and suddenly I’m aware of myself again, the shadows of dragons long dead all around me.

A brass handle gleams in the light from the torch in my left hand, a torch I don’t remember taking off the wall. Curiosity and fear flicker through me, gone before I can latch fully onto either emotion.

My right hand takes the handle, the carved surface smooth against my palm, and I twist, expecting resistance.

There is none.

The door opens, but not inward, like I assumed. Instead, it scrapes stone on stone, disappearing into the side wall.

A low grinding sound shakes the dust from the walls all around me, and torches flare into life in the vast darkness revealed before me.

I peer through the opening, a small part of me screaming that this isn’t right, that something’s wrong—but my body moves, independent of that shred of fear, and my feet move.

The grinding sound is a staircase, block after block of rough-hewn steps slotting into place, winding around itself lower and lower, into the depths beneath the room of dragons.

The further down I travel, the more my self-preservation kicks in, but I can’t seem to stop, can’t seem to make any noise.

There’s a dreamlike quality to this moment that makes me second-guess the reality of it. Like when I was with my mother, right before I woke into a body that wasn’t mine, wasn’t the one she gave me.

I swallow hard, as if that will wake me.

Finally, I make it to the bottom step, where the stone flattens out in front of me.

“There’s not enough light to make me want to keep going,” I say to myself. A few heartbeats later, I’m still standing there, only to hear my voice echoing from some distant wall.

Whatever it is, this underground chamber is vast.

My palm turns sticky against the handle of the torch I can’t remember picking up, and the oily feel of magic slithers over my skin.

“Stay there.” I don’t have to turn to know Hrakan is behind me.

He may have been behind me this whole time.

It’s his command that has me moving again.

Who does he think he is, to tell me anything?

The minute I start moving again, the feeling of wrongness dissipates.

The voice I heard, the voice that woke me from my sleep, laughs, and this time, it’s not in my head.

“Damn it to hells, Kyrie,” the death god behind me swears. “You go where I cannot follow.”

Of course he noticed me slipping out of his naked embrace.

Light sparks in front of me, scorching heat and sound traveling on its heels.

Fire .

Flame erupts in front of me, and I throw one arm over my face, crouching instinctively. My eyes water from the heat, every nerve of my skin screaming at me to get away from it.

Finally, it fades slightly, and nervous, fully aware too late of the trouble I’ve gotten myself in, I lower my arm.

My eyes widen.

The walls are on fire—I blink.No, they’ve been lit. Thousands of symbols glow within the stone, some forgotten language blazing bright before me.

Entranced, I step forward.

There is magic here, tingling across my skin, coating my tongue, my throat, embedded in the very air I breathe.

It makes me come alive in a way I haven’t since… since before.

The sorrow-stained memory changes, the fierce and wild love I felt replacing it.

“ It was real, what you felt ,” the voice tells me, and two golden lights blink into existence in front of me. “ It is real, the anger and betrayal you feel now, too. But it doesn’t change what once was. And what once was will be again .”

Not lights—eyes.

The voice is pure power, the pressure, the magic of the words weighing heavy on my skin, reverberating through every bone in my body.

Trance-like, I walk through the chamber, aware of the Fae god shouting at me, calling my name, unable and unwilling to listen to his pleas.

If I’m in danger, I don’t care.

What do I have to live for anyway?

“ You have everything to live for ,” the voice chides, and I keep walking, the flickering symbols on the walls growing fainter the deeper I go, my heels clicking. “ You must live your truth, golden tongue, so brightly that those entrenched in the darkness of lies can’t help but be bathed in your light. ”

It doesn’t understand what the voice is saying, not really, but it registers within my soul as if someone’s struck the clearest bell I’ve ever heard.

The closer I draw to the golden eyes, the faster my heart races.

They’re taller now, closer to the cavernous ceiling above, and finally I stop, my chin tilted up, trying to suss out what it is I keep hearing.

A shape takes form and I gasp, fear finally fighting through the strange miasma that has clouded my thoughts completely.

Light shimmers off a hard surface I thought was more symbols, and a beast so huge I can hardly comprehend it drops to the stone floor before me.

Wings snap, as loud as thunder as the monster controls his fall.

The ground shakes under the weight, and I can hardly draw breath.

“Dragon.”

“ Well-spotted ,” the beast says, and somehow, it’s sarcastic and fond all at once.

Sparks fly as a talon scrapes along the floor, and the beast lowers an enormous snout to me, nostrils each the size of my head inhaling deeply. My hair whips around my face in the sudden onslaught.

“You are my chosen, Kyrie Elieson of the New Fae, golden-tongued and champion of the light. Through chaos you will reign, and through lies you will find the truth.”

Hot air washes over me, stinging my eyes, and I have no idea what to do.

“Am I dreaming?” the question pops out before I can think better of it.

It’s not exactly the most intelligent thing to ask a mythological creature, but then again, I’ve never thought I was particularly smart. I only ever needed to be clever enough to save my own hide.

“And now you will save all of the hides in the kingdom of Heska.” The dragon butts me with the bridge of its snout, and I scramble backward, finally seizing on a kernel of self-preservation.

“How?” I ask. I’m not sure if I’m asking how a dragon exists, or how I’m going to save shit, considering I couldn’t even save myself a few weeks ago.

“My name is Hanectribal, and I am the last of my kind,” the dragon says.

“That’s a terrible name.” Oh. Oh, that was stupid.

“Not many have been brave or stupid enough to speak so boldly to me.” Smoke pours from the dragon’s nostrils, reeking of sulfur.

I tilt my head, amused and awed all at once. “I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of being brave, but I’ve certainly been stupid.”

“Honesty again.” The dragon rears back, talons tapping along the dusty stone floor. “Isn’t it refreshing to speak your mind with no agenda?”

“Who says I don’t have an agenda?” I retort with a laugh.

The dragon chuffs, a puff of smoke coming from his nostrils again. “It seems your agenda is to insult me and my name without any regard to your personal safety, golden tongue.”

“I have a thing about names lately,” I admit. “His, for example, sounds like a cat with a hairball problem.” I gesture vaguely behind myself at where I’m sure Hrakan is eavesdropping, the twat.

I lean in, stage whispering behind a hand. “Worse, his nickname sounds like a euphemism for his cock.”

The dragon roars, making dust fly from every conceivable surface, and I flinch backwards before realizing he’s laughing.

Finally, he quiets, great reptilian eyes blinking slowly as he studies me. “And what would you call me, Kyrie of the Undying?”

Undying. It’s suddenly hard to swallow.

“Han.” The name pops out of me, and the dragon makes a sound that’s close to laughter.

“That’s not so far off, you know,” he says.

“You keep changing my name?—”

“No,” the dragon interrupts, one eye coming level with my face. The cat-like pupil constricts as he studies me. Something slams on the ground next to me, dust billowing into the air. His tail.

Studded with spikes, its scales rasp along the stones as he drags it back behind him.

“I am not changing your name,” he continues, a growl biting at each word. “I am telling you what you are, what you have always been, should you have chosen to use your prowess—your abilities—differently. Should you have been given the chance without being forced under Sola’s influence.”

“I…”

“At a loss for words, little one?” Han chuffs again, and I swear, there is a glint of amusement on his dragon face.

“What am I to you?”

“Ah, yes, the eternal cry of the young. Why me? Why now? You are mine, just as much as you are his.” His golden gaze travels over my shoulder, to where I know Hrakan stands. “Mine in a different way, mine to carve out a new world, where those who have been waiting and watching are free to come into the light again. Together, we will guide the future.”

“What if I don’t want to?” I ask, feeling churlish. “What if what you’re promising is just as bad as what Sola would have used me for if I were still?—”

I pause, because I was going to say human.

I don’t want to admit that I’m different now.

I’m not sure I know what I am.

“Your fate has been, and always will be, your own, Kyrie. Death did as he must, and he is your reward, should you choose the right path.”

“Death is my reward?” I don’t like the sound of that, one way or another.

He cocks his head at me, smoke curling from between the sharp points of his fangs. “Haven’t you realized it yet? Life is chaos. Use the scale when you have greatest need. Otherwise, I’ll be watching. Guiding. This form is too dangerous to maintain while she hunts you.”

The great golden beast blinks slowly.

I step back, shocked as the talons fade, then the front legs, disappearing quicker than I can blink.

And then he’s gone, one golden scale winking in the firelight lining the walls.

A second later, the symbols on the walls die, plunging the chamber into dark and cold.