Page 115 of Of Blooming Embers
I turned to Morpheus, nails digging into my palms. The warmth of my gifted ring tingled against my skin. I pulled Melina’s stolen band from my belt satchel. “I believe this is yours, yes?” With a nod, his handsome face softened. Morpheus took it from my outstretched hand and slipped it on his left forefinger.
His head tilted, eyes studying me. “I won’t be able to offer you guidance down there.”
I tossed him a deadpan look. “Oh, no. No more mysterious words spoken inside my head? No more dreams full of premonitions?”
“I’m sorry if they vexed you, but they were a boon, were they not? It pained me not to be able to do more over the turns. But once I realized I could offer you the little I did, hope fueled me. Hope that you’d be the one to release me. To save the mortal realm … and my fated, so we can finally be bound through the Kollao Ceremony.”
“Because you can’t leave Surrelia,” I spat, scowling. “All-powerful Ancients can’t save us.”
“As I said, we can only influence. The Fates and the treaty forbids direct intervention. I would think the time spent with my sister would’ve made that clear.”
Kaden rolled his eyes, and I scoffed. “Nothing is ever clear with Phantasos.”
Kaden scratched his jaw. “Why hasn’t sissy been sucked into the aether? Seems like her ticket between the realms doesn’t have an expiration date.”
Morpheus closed his eyes for a moment, wide chest expanding, as if preparing to talk to an unruly toddler. “She’s always been quite adept at appeasing the Fates; her intentions cloaked in riddles. My sister need not worry about her power depleting like the rest of us, for her ember is sourced?—”
“From the wilds. She can traverse any realm’s wilderness and thrive,” I interjected, recalling my studies this last winter.
The corners of Morpheus’ mouth curled as my ice-blue eyes narrowed.
As if I were looking at my own reflection.
Acid boiled in my stomach, apprehension sliding a frozen finger up my spine.
“Who’s your fated?”
The Ancient of Dreams moved closer to me. “After I was caged, loathing, in its purest form, festered in me. I vowed to destroy my brother. Treaty and Kosmos be damned. For you see, each time humanity dreamed during the Dormancies, all that ember had to go somewhere … The pods siphoned it directly into me every month. Until my very essence nearly burst from my flesh. Until my sanity was pushed to the brink of darkness again and again. I would’ve ripped through everything and everyone in my path if I had been freed then.”
I gulped, my heart hanging on every word.
His smile pushed further into his high cheekbones. “Then one day, many decades into my captivity, our bond called to me. A single golden thread broke through the rot and shadows, consuming my soul. I reached for it, tethering it tightly to my left rib so it wouldn’t get lost in my torment.”
He rubbed his chest, his golden aura shimmering and pulsing. “Selene smiled upon me that day. From then on, during the full moons, I met my love in her dreams.” I flinched as his warm hand cupped my chin tenderly. “Your mother—my Maya—brought me back from the brink of insanity. And I’ve been waiting a long time to have her by my side … and to meet you … Daughter.”
EPILOGUE
GAVREL
“It’s the only way,”I had said in our shared dream last night. That seemed so long ago. Although I had no sense of time, I plummeted into the nothingness devouring me. My limbs flailed, spine whipping and bending as flashes of metal snapped and sparked in my vision. Smoldering blackness raked against me, coiling and scorching my flesh as it dragged across my body greedily.
I hadn’t known what the dreams meant then. All the times I imagined the darkness claiming me as I fell from the edge. But when Kaden charged at Melina, her sickening shadows clinging to my face, it was as if every hazy crumb that had been offered during my sleep had fully formed.
I had to do it.
It was the only way.
Even if we had been somehow able to end her—which I highly doubted considering how drained we had all been—Melina wouldn’t stop.
And I couldn’trisk my brother.
Seryn.
Melina wouldn’t take any more from them.
And when I kissed my little star for the last time—when I told her, “To the Nether Void and beyond”—nothing had ever felt as true.
My khorda.
