Page 14 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams (Fated to the Sun and Stars #3)

Morgana

I don’t remember much else. I slip in and out of the waking world without really being able to grasp what’s happening.

At some point, I feel the rhythm of hoofbeats beneath me, which then changes to the rattle of a carriage.

Then there’s the slow tilt of a large structure creaking around me and the distant splashing of water.

In the moments when I have a snatch of coherent thought, I suspect Leon is working actively to keep my slumber calm and dreamless. Whenever I close my eyes, all I see is the soft, golden light of sunshine, stretching on for eternity—no landscapes, no people, just me and the light.

My peace is disturbed by a stinging sensation somewhere near my stomach. It grows, yanking me from that harmonious golden land into a white-walled room. I stare up at the canopy of a four-poster bed and hiss as the stinging hits again.

“Sorry,” I look down to see Mal bent over me, applying something to my exposed stomach. “We’ve healed most of it, but Heda says this might help with the scarring.”

I gingerly prop myself up on my elbows to examine my state.

I’ve been washed and changed in my sleep, but that only reveals what can’t be fixed with a little grooming.

My stomach is a map of stark, white lines, criss-crossing over each other like a knotted, gnarled spider’s web.

I lie back, not wanting to look at the scars anymore, and when Mal is done, sleep claims me again.

I don’t know how much later it is when I wake, but when I do, I don’t need to open my eyes to sense his presence.

Leon. I just know he’s there, and a strange certainty tells me that will always be the case. Wherever we are, whatever’s happening, I’ll be tuned to him.

Now I turn to meet his gaze and reach out to him.

He comes and kneels by the bedside, cupping my face in his hand.

For a moment we don’t say anything. We don’t need to.

Just being close again is enough. I let myself get pulled into his eyes.

Eventually, they settle my mind enough to allow me to say what I’ve been waiting to.

“Thank you.”

He gives me a questioning look.

“Thank you for coming to get me. I tried to escape on my own, I really did, but I wasn’t strong enough.”

He lowers his face to mine and gently captures my lips, cradling my head as he warms me from the inside out with his kiss.

“Don’t thank me,” he says when we part. “Because I did it entirely for myself. I couldn’t go on, couldn’t live, until I had you back. It was disgustingly selfish, really.”

I smile. “Well, thank you for being selfish, even if I don’t find you disgusting at all.”

I sit up, surprised at how much less pain I feel across my stomach. Heda’s balm must’ve worked. As Leon rises and sits on the bed beside me, I finally process where I am. There’s no mistaking the familiar decor or the sounds rising up from the floors below. We’re at the Crossed Keys in Tread.

“Is Lafia alright? And Phaia?” I ask.

“Yes, Mal’s looked at their injuries, and they’ll be okay. They’re both resting.”

I nod, satisfied for now, though I make a note to check on them later. My worry about them reminds me of the last time I saw all of Leon’s soldiers together, and an old pain twinges in my chest.

“Leon, I’m so sorry about Eryx.”

He drops his gaze, and I see my pain mirrored in his face.

“He would’ve been proud to die protecting you, Ana,” he says.

I shake my head, unable to accept his words, his absolution. “If I hadn’t asked you to split up…”

“Then maybe even more of my soldiers would be dead. Things at the walls of Bastion were bad when I arrived. You were right in the sanctuary when you said they needed my help,” he says firmly.

I nod reluctantly. He’s right, but that doesn’t make the guilt go away—even if it does ease it. For now, I’ll let the topic go. I have a lot of questions, but I decide to give Leon an explanation first.

“The codex was a trap,” I explain.

“I know,” he says. “Caledon planted the information about it to lure us there.”

“To lure me there, specifically,” I say. “It did have a prophecy in it that told Caledon what to look for. It was a prophecy about me .”

His eyes widen. “What do you mean?”

I repeat the prophecy and everything else I learned.

Leon tenses when I touch on my conversation with Caledon.

Even though I leave out the details, I know it’s obvious how I got the wounds on my stomach.

I put a hand on his knee to soothe him, skipping ahead to the part of the story where I was bundled away to some random building in the heart of Qimorna and left there until Leon came breaking down the door.

“How did you find me?” I ask. I have my theories, but I’m still curious.

Leon takes my hand, tracing his fingers across my knuckles.

“We’d already worked out they were holding you in the holy city. From there, we used an old fae spell that linked us so I could sense your location in Qimorna.”

“Filusians have something like that?” I ask, amazed .

Leon continues to study my hand.

“It’s not common—partly because it involves blood magic. Your brother still had some of yours from the kin test. It also comes with…side effects. You might notice in the coming weeks that you’re more aware of my presence than usual. Maybe you feel it already.”

I frown as I realize I have been sensing Leon. Didn’t I think as much the moment I woke up? And in my cell too. I’d been so certain that Leon was coming for me.

“It was you in the dream,” I say.

“Yes, that was part of the spell.” He lifts my hand to his lips, kissing the back of it. “I’m sorry I had to leave you. The dimane the Temple surrounded you with made it hard to reach you.”

“Of course,” I reply absently, most of my concentration focused on trying to figure out what, exactly, I’m sensing. I find that if I listen carefully, there is something there. A steady thumping in my blood, like a second heartbeat. I gently take my hand from Leon and lay it over his chest.

“I feel it,” I say, a little awed.

“It will fade over time,” he says, and I detect a slight tension in his voice.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say, wanting to reassure him since he seems to expect me to be upset by the side effects.

“It helped you find me. More than that, it saved me long before you turned up in my prison. That dream gave me hope when I was close to giving up. I knew Caledon would drain me in time, and kill Lafia too, and all I could think about was…”

I stop short of giving a name to the memory, but it plays out vividly in my mind’s eye. Kit’s agonized face. His blood running through my fingers.

“Ana, are you alright?”

“I have to speak to Tira,” I say, a weight settling at my core.

Leon nods. “I’ll take you to her. She has her own room now.

Heda decided to give us more space when she realized we were going to be staying a while.

It didn’t hurt that I offered to pay her extra for the lodgings.

I couldn’t stand listening to any more of Alastor and Stratton’s bickering about snoring and untidiness. ”

He frowns when his joke doesn’t lighten my expression.

“There’s this too,” he says, pulling a ring from his pocket. I stiffen, my heartrate speeding up at the sight of it.

“It’s a glamour token,” he says, and my pulse slows, but when he meets my gaze, there’s a hint of awkwardness between us.

Leon presses the ring into my hand and quickly fills the silence.

“You’re getting too recognizable, even in a backwater like Tread, so I had Gallis send it over from Filusia.

Don’t worry, it’s a light charm. It’ll just add small tweaks to your features, nothing as drastic as the ones that make us look human. ”

“Thank you,” I say, pocketing it.

“Put it on whenever you leave the inn,” Leon says as he rises to take me to Tira.

When I step inside her room, I see that she’s started to make the place her own.

Pieces of whittled wood and feathers are piled on a table in the corner—to be turned into arrows, I suspect.

Dots is asleep, curled at the foot of her bed, but lifts his head when I come in.

When he sees me, he jumps down, his four tails waving back and forth happily, and gambols over to me.

He nuzzles my palm with his snout as I bend to pet him.

“Hi, Dots,” I say gently. “Long time no see.”

“Actually, he was part of your rescue mission,” Tira says with a smile. I straighten up, looking again around the room, and notice with a pang that some of the furniture is draped in colorful scarves, just like Una used to wear.

The reminder of what Tira’s lost hits me like a slap, and I can’t share Tira’s joy as she comes over to hug me.

“On your feet already,” she comments, looking me over. “I knew the Temple couldn’t knock the stuffing out of you that easily.”

“Tira…” I don’t know where to begin, and my friend’s face falls. She might not know what I’m here to say, but she can read me well enough to know that it’s bad.

“Let’s sit down,” she says, taking me over to the chairs by the table as Leon steps outside, giving us privacy .

Once we’re seated, I look up into her nervous face, trying to find the words.

“Tira, when I was at the high temple…” I trail off again, hating myself for doing this. For taking from her more than has already been taken. But she deserves to know.

“Whatever it is, do you have to talk about it now?” Tira takes my hand. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”

But her trying to comfort me only makes me feel more terrible.

“I need to talk about it. I won’t be able to rest until I do.”

She’s afraid. Taking a deep breath, I force myself to say the words. To say his name.