Page 149 of The Queen’s Shadow

I floated forward through shadows and star clusters. My galaxy aura twisted around me, searching for the green and black nebula that was Amon’s soul.

The sound of crashing waves greeted my ears and the seemingly endless space I had been floating through solidified into the black beach of Aurora’s cove.

The Dominion’s violet and fuchsia version of the aurora borealis danced overhead and a lone fire crackled on the beach. Standing before the fire, with his hands in his pockets and his silver hair burning in the light of The Dominion’s twin moons, stood Amon.

An impossibly strong force pulled me forward, and he sensed my presence, turning towards me as I approached. Our eyes met, and he looked at me as if I were the answer to a question he had been asking his entire life. A profound sadness rolled off of him, mirroring the quiet wash of the tide on the beach. I nearly staggered, as I tried to take his pain onto myself.

‘Amon, what happened?’ I asked. He reached forward, his fingers tucking a strand of dark hair back behind my ear. He tilted my face up and pressed the softest of kisses against my lips, before brushing his thumb against my cheek.

His touch was made of feathers and stardust, and he leaned into me as if I were the wind that kept him from falling. Our souls reached toward each other through the dream but were met with the cold glass wall of reality that kept us apart.

‘I am so proud of you, Raven.’ He said, refusing to answer my question. I couldn’t get angry. I couldn’t ask why he wouldn’t tell me what was happening. I knew he was trying to protect me, but I didn’t need protection. I needed him.

My soul cried for him. Without him I was lost, cursed to wander alone forever. I would never find my way home until he was back in my arms because he was my home.

‘Why does it feel like you’re saying goodbye?’ I whispered, and he gave me a sad smile.

‘I would never willingly leave you, Raven. You must know that by now.’ He put his hands on each side of my hips and tugged me closer, pressing another painfully soft kiss against my forehead.

‘Whatever is happening, you don’t need to tell me, but you need to keep fighting.’ I told him. I had this horrible feeling that if I didn’t find him soon, I really would lose him forever. ‘Please Amon. I need you.’ The sadness that hung in the warm summer air of the dream was so thick I worried I might drown.

He pulled back and gave me a quiet, sad smile. Curling a finger under my chin, he tilted my head back to lay another devastatingly gentle kiss on my lips.

We hung there, in a tortured moment of comfort. Somehow both tethered together, while still hovering worlds apart.

‘You don’t need me, Raven.’ He said, his voice so soft the wash of waves on the beach competed with the velvet of his voice. ‘You’ve never needed anyone to save you, we have always needed you to save us.’ He brushed his thumb over my chin gently, and my eyes stung with the burn of unshed tears. My heart cracked in my chest as he looked down at me with an expression that told me he loved me more than life itself, and he would allow his love for me to kill him, if the universe demanded it.

‘None of us deserve you, my love.’ He whispered, his own eyes shining with tears. ‘You have always deserved the world. I am sorry that I have not been able to give it to you.’

‘Why are you saying these things? What happened?’ I tried asking again, not bothering to hide the desperation in my voice. I reached forward, cupping his face in my hands, wishing that he was really standing before me, and that I could bury myself in the scent of cinnamon, instead of the aching emptiness that was this dream.

He closed his green eyes and pressed forward into my hands, pulling me so close; it felt as if he were trying to bring us back together through the sheer force of his will.

‘Will you sit with me, and let me hold you?’ He asked softly into my ear. I nodded against his chest, unable to deny him anything when he sounded like this… Like he was breaking and there were too many pieces for me to put back together.

He pulled me down into the sand with him and positioned me between his legs, tugging me back to rest my head against his chest.

He wrapped his strong arms around me and buried his face in my hair. I couldn’t stop the sob that escaped my lips. The tears came and I didn’t try to hold them back. He squeezed me tighter and rocked me gently back and forth while I cried in his arms.

‘I love you.’ Was all he said, as he held me beneath the shimmering sky of the dream, dreading the morning that neither of us could stop from coming.

Conrad

Iwas up early, driven from sleep by unwanted nightmares of Nytara, bleeding out from a neck wound. I shook the nightmare off and pushed back the worry that had bloomed in my chest since Jeremy had told us Rycon took her down.

I had no business worrying about her at all. She was the enemy. If di puss hadn’t taken her out, she would have hurt Raven, and kidnapped Kasha again.

I shuddered, as I remembered what had been done to Kasha. Her tiny child-like body curled into Rycon as if he were the only stable thing in a ruthless sea filled with monsters.

Which wasn’t far off from the truth. We were stranded, in the middle of a sea of chaos, and there were dangerous creatures lurking in the depths. I felt lost and desperate for something to hold onto myself. I no longer had The Board to lean on, and all my beliefs, dreams and goals had been torn from me in one fell swoop.

Outside of Raven and the small group of friends we had made here, I didn’t know who to trust anymore. I had never felt so alone, or so angry.

I took a quick shower and slid into my restructium, filling the built-in tubing with a water reserve before heading to the common room.

I was grabbing coffee when Dossidian walked in, followed by Cerenah and a male daemon I didn’t know. The male looked annoyed and tense. He had dark hair, golden skin and a long brutal scar that ran diagonally down his face, nearly cleaving it in two. His aura sent chills down my spine and his magick felt like a congealing wound or a fractured bone. Everything about him screamed ‘bad.’

Cerenah seemed to orbit him as if they were opposite ends of two magnets bound to repel each other. She looked at him with disgust and in turn, his eyes tracked her movements as if he were a predator stalking his prey. The way he watched her had me gripping the hilt of my shadowstone rapier so tight my knuckles popped.