Page 281 of The Nightmare Bride
Despite everything, I grinned. At long last, I’d gotten the upper hand, if only for one brief and shining moment.
“Don’t give me that look,” I said. “You knew.”
He recovered swiftly, his mouth curving. “Of course Iknew. I just didn’t think you’d ever say it. And I love you, too. Every ferocious, stubborn inch of you. Which you also knew.”
I bundled the words up tight, tucking them against my heart, the most priceless treasures in my possession.
Seven hells, it was going to kill me to leave a world in which he could have been mine. Literally kill me.
But I had to. For Amryssa.
I held out my hand, and Kai caught my fingers in his. I savored the feel. “Come on. Let's go thwart a hero. And a goddess.”
His nod was swift, full of intent. “Let’s.”
We ran.
The cypresses and tupelos thrashed, their glow taking on a frenzied quality. The nightmare’s light illuminated Kai’s face in one moment, then abandoned him to shadow the next.
I pushed my body to its limit. I dodged branches and dashed through puddles, my lungs snatching at the same wind I was displacing. The only thing that felt solid was Kai’s hand. Everything else wavered, as if the veil draped over reality might rupture at any moment.
The forest was familiar, but not. It was the same swamp I’d grown up in, but changed by the rot, and I seemed to be barreling toward both my future and my past, toward some catastrophic epicenter where the two intersected.
The storm boomed overhead. My steps faltered, then recovered. I was yesterday’s Harlowe—the orphan, unwanted—but also today’s—a wife, and beloved. And despairing. And desperate, desperate, desperate.
Curtains of moss whipped past. Glowing mud splattered my skirts. Insects chattered in the underbrush, the sound invading my skull in a way that told me they weren’t actually there. Neither were the things rising from the dark. They belonged to Zephyrine, to a mother’s loss given hellish life.
Ahead, a deer stumbled from the underbrush, a misshapen creature with backward-jointed legs and too many teeth to count. Its head was upside-down.
Not real. I squeezed my eyes shut and angled a shoulder into it without slowing. The thing burst into purple mist as I passed through.
Around me, the nightmare screamed.You are nothing. Worthless.
No,I told it.I matter.
Its garbled voice faded. Moments later, Kai and I reached a clearing. In the middle, a majestic oak rose toward the raging sky, haloed by a moat of firm ground.
The holy tree.
But not just that. Something was here—something vast and dimensionless that threw my bodily functions into turmoil and made my teeth buzz in their sockets.
Kai’s grip tightened, but I shook free. Wind scoured the grass, pressing the blades flat. Bursts of purple lightning zigzagged around us. Overhead, the storm brewed like a livid, inverted whirlpool.
“Harlowe,” Kai shouted. “We should wait here. We have to stop Vick before he gets Amryssa near the tree.”
I studied the empty clearing. We’d beaten Vick, but Amryssa wouldn’t be safe until Zephyrine accepted my sacrifice. Then my friend would become a useless hostage. Vick would have no choice but to let her go, his mission to stop the nightmares fulfilled.
Amryssa and Kai would be safe. So would everyone else. I only had to buy their futures with mine.
“You stay here.” I smiled, trying to ease the sting. “Keep Vick away. I need to talk to Zephyrine.”
Kai’s brow creased, but he had no way to know there was another way. One I meant to take.
“Please.” I shouted over the ear-splitting shriek of the storm. “Just trust me.”
His gaze clouded with doubt.
A knot gathered under my sternum, so constricting I could barely breathe. This was cruel.Iwas cruel, weaponizing his love for me like this. Somewhere inside me, those wings began to beat, heavy and thrashing. Part of me was trying to break away, to stay with him.
