Page 45 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams (Fated to the Sun and Stars #3)

Morgana

M y tension ebbs as we arrive in Tread—the smattering of familiar buildings are a welcome sight after our travels. It’s starting to feel like home. Not because it’s known or because it’s comfortable, but because this is where our friends are.

We head to the cellars first, ready to report straight to Harman. But he meets us in the room before his office, striding through the doorway with surprising speed.

“You’re back,” he says, rather unnecessarily. His face is stretched into the broadest smile I’ve ever seen him wear. Then I notice his eyes are firmly fixed on one person in particular.

“And here I was hoping I might get to make myself presentable before I saw you,” Alastor says.

“Come here, you idiot,” Harman replies, and Alastor moves forward nearly faster than my eyes can track as my brother pulls him into an embrace.

Harman’s hand goes to the back of Alastor’s neck as he buries his head in the blond’s shoulder. The fae is naturally taller than my brother, but in that moment they both lean on each other. From this angle, I can see Harman’s eyes are closed, and Alastor sighs, contented .

I can’t help smiling as I glance up at Leon. He meets my gaze with a smirk and a good-natured shake of his head. Mal coughs, clearly feeling awkward seeing his esteemed leader in such an emotionally vulnerable moment, and I decide to put him out of his misery.

“Are you going to say hello to your sister too, or does only Alastor get a hug?” I say in mock annoyance.

The pair break apart, and I suppress a laugh when a blush climbs up to Harman’s ears.

Alastor, meanwhile, looks utterly unbothered.

It strikes me as funny, that a human whose life is all about secrets might fall in love with a fae who keeps none.

But then I suspect that’s what Harman finds so refreshing about Alastor.

“Hello, Morgana,” Harman says ruefully, hugging me, then offering Leon and Mal handshakes. “How was it? Could the dryads help you?”

I answer by lifting my palm and showing Harman a ray of sunlight dancing between my fingers.

“That’s wonderful,” he says, but the joy doesn’t quite ring true. I drop my hand.

“Is everything alright?” I ask.

The happiness on Harman’s face from our reunion fades quickly, like a candle being snuffed out.

“I’m afraid there’s bad news.”

The unsettled feeling I’ve been having since we started the journey back now makes sense. I brace myself as Harman leads us into his office.

“I’ve just gotten back from one of our bases in Kestis myself. We’re trying to re-establish a safehouse there after the last one, well…” He trails off, not needing to remind us of the way Caledon’s spell blew out all the windows and massacred everyone except me in their old safehouse.

“When I returned, I was surprised to discover that Damia’s group isn’t back from Elmere yet,” he continues.

Leon stiffens. “None of them?” he asks, and Harman shakes his head.

My heart drops. The route back from Elmere to Tread should’ve been quicker than ours, given that the Miravow slowed us down .

“That’s not all,” Harman says. “They announced the news in Kestis two days ago. Oclanna’s coronation went ahead. She’s officially the queen of Trova.”

My heart reaches my stomach and quickly turns into a hard lump of nausea.

“So they failed,” Mal says, sounding downcast.

“And if they failed, that means something went very wrong,” Leon adds.

Queen . The woman who murdered my parents, who framed Leon, and handed the keys of the kingdom to Caledon, is now queen. I feel sick. There’s an awful unnaturalness to it. Now that someone else is sitting on the throne, I know in my gut that this isn’t the right order of things.

This is my kingdom, not hers. I’m the one fighting to save it while she just throws it to the wolves.

And the fae, and Corrin and his friend Warren—did I send them to their deaths?

“No. Damia can’t be dead. Not like Eryx. I won’t accept it.”

I jerk my head up, staring at Leon, because the thought definitely wasn’t mine.

Not that I don’t agree with him—I do, I absolutely do.

But the phrasing, the intensity behind it…

that was him. Not me. I turn to Leon to see if he spoke, but he’s not even looking at me.

He’s sitting silently as he listens to Harman speak. But I know what I heard.

Just like in the temple in Starfall.

I’d thought he’d been there with me, but it turned out to only be in my head.

Except…what if that didn’t mean I was imagining it?

Hadn’t Diomi said that we were too intertwined for him to enter the temple with me?

I’d thought he meant emotionally tangled up at the time…

but maybe he was talking about Leon and me being magically linked.

I don’t hear much else of what Harman is saying, too busy thinking over the possibility.

I’ve been noticing how well I’ve been reading him and how well he’s been sensing my feelings.

I thought it was just intuition, us growing naturally closer.

But that doesn’t explain hearing Leon, or Leon’s thoughts, in my mind .

And every time I’ve tried to bring it up, Leon’s changed the subject, or kissed me, or offered up some other sneaky distraction.

My suspicion builds, and I look down to see his hand reaching for mine.

“It’ll be okay,” he says, looking at me like he can feel the turmoil of emotions inside me.

I mumble about not letting Oclanna get away with this, but it must be obvious to everyone that I’m distracted, because Harman stands up.

“You must all be exhausted from your journey. Let’s talk about this more tomorrow. Maybe we’ll have some news from the others by then.” He gestures to the exit through the cellars. “Your usual rooms are waiting for you at the Crossed Keys.”

I try to breathe past the tension in my stomach that might alert Leon that something’s wrong. It helps that we have a lot of reasons to feel uneasy right now. When we get to our room at the inn, I wait a few minutes before I start rubbing my forehead and sighing.

“You know, I’m not feeling too great,” I say. “I might just go see if Heda’s got something that can perk me up.”

Leon looks at me with concern, and I clamp down on the flare of guilt I feel for lying to him.

“I can go speak to her,” he says. “You stay here and rest.”

“No, no,” I say, already making my way to the door. “It’ll be better if I can discuss my exact symptoms with her. I won’t be long.”

Instead of heading downstairs, I turn left, moving down the corridor toward Alastor’s room. I knock quietly on the door, hoping Leon’s too preoccupied to hear me as I call out.

“Alastor.”

“Come back later, please,” he responds, sounding distracted.

I can’t just go back to Leon and pretend everything is okay. Not without some answers. Frowning, I knock harder.

“ Alastor . I need to speak to you. Now.”

“Morgana? ”

There’s some noise behind the door, and it opens a crack. Alastor stands there in a shirt that appears to have been pulled on in a hurry. The neckline is completely askew, exposing half his shoulder.

“What?” he asks abruptly. “Are we being raided? Has the Trovian army found us? Is Caledon standing in your bedroom right this instant? Because otherwise I’ll kindly ask you to go away .”

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I really am. “But you have to tell my brother to get dressed, because you and I need to have a little chat.”

Alastor rolls his eyes and pushes the door open to reveal Harman standing there looking sheepish. Aside from a jacket lying crumpled on a nearby chair, he’s fully clothed, so at least there’s that. There are some things a sister does not need to see.

“As if we had time to get to that,” Alastor huffs and leaves the door open for me to follow him inside.

“Sorry, Harman,” I say. “I wouldn’t interrupt if it wasn’t important.”

“You…er…weren’t interrupting anything,” Harman says.

“ Excuse me?” Alastor says, leveling a piercing stare at my brother.

“I mean, you weren’t interrupting anything we can’t continue later,” Harman corrects himself. “I’m assuming this won’t take long, because I’d really like to go back to kissing Alastor as soon as possible.”

“That’s more like it,” Alastor says, mollified.

“I’ll try to make it quick,” I say as the fae ushers my brother out the door.

“Okay, let’s hear what’s so urgent,” Alastor says, turning around and facing me.

“I want to talk about the location spell you used to find me in Qimorna. Exactly how powerful was that thing? Because Leon said the effects would wear off, but if anything they seem to be getting stronger, and when I try to ask, he dodges the subject.”

Alastor’s face drops as I talk, and when I’m done, he’s still holding tightly onto the door handle .

“I changed my mind,” he says. “I definitely don’t have time to have this conversation.” He starts to open the door. “So if you’ll just go take it up with Leon?—”

“Alastor!” I say, appalled he’s trying to brush me off too. “I came to you because I thought I could trust you to be honest with me.”

Alastor blows air out through his teeth and shuts the door again.

“Have you actually asked him outright about it?” His tone is serious, and it worries me.

“Well, no…” I say.

“You need to. Soon. Because this isn’t going to go away.”

Now I’m definitely nervous. “Just how big a deal is it? What is this spell? Leon said it was some old piece of fae magic?—”

“It is. Very old. And it’s not actually meant to be used to locate people at all,” Alastor says, running his hand through his hair.

“You really need to discuss this with him, not me. But I’ll say two things first: I suggested it in the first place, so this is partially on me.

I’ll own up to that. Secondly, we were desperate. He was desperate. Just remember that.”

I stare at him, dread rising at every word. He wouldn’t be preemptively trying to calm me down unless the truth would make me truly furious.

“It can’t be that bad, can it?” I ask.

“That depends on you,” Alastor says.