Page 60 of The Nightmare Bride
My eyes darted. Behind him, the wallpaper bulged and broke open. Dozens of insectile arms thrust through the gap, a many-limbed monster hissing my name, promising to nibble me down to limp, wet strings.
“Harlowe.”
My attention jerked back to Kyven.
“What is it?” he said. “That you see? What does the nightmare tell you?”
The answer boiled up from somewhere deep. “That I’m worthless. Nothing. Insignificant.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “Youknowthat, don’t you? Because if so, the storm can’t have you. But you can’t just believe you’re worthy, you have to know it. Like I know it. Like Amryssa knows it. Maybe your imbecile parents didn’t, but what they did would’ve crushed a lesser woman. Only you didn’t break, because queens never do. Queens are ironclad, remember?”
“But...” I battled for air. The nightmare fought to pry my fingers loose from the anchor-line of his gaze. “I’m no queen. Just a lowly princess.”
He blinked, then laughed, the sound so unexpected that it infused me with a dose of control.
“That’s my girl,” he said, stroking my cheeks, my hair. “My eight-week wife. What’s your name?”
“My...name?”
“Yes. You’re Harlowe, but Harlowe what?”
“It’s...” I blocked out the storm’s wildfire roar, the way blood was oozing down the wallpaper. Queen. He’d called me a queen. Think about that. “I don’t have a last name. Not anymore. My parents took me into the swamp and walked away and...I buried their name out there. In the marsh. Now I’m just Harlowe.”
The nightmare screamed. My hands curled into claws, my arm yanking against its socket in a quest to dig my own heart from my ribcage.
Kyven took hold of my wayward wrist and pinned it to the mattress, so much more gently than the manacle did. “All right, then, just Harlowe. Listen to me. Right now, I’m just Ky. All right?”
I nodded. “Ky.” I hefted his name like a shield.
“Yes, good. Now here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to stay with me. Because this storm, it’s nothing but fear, trying to swallow you up. Everything it says, everything it shows you, is a lie. And while it’s strong, you’re stronger. You might be just Harlowe, but you’re also a survivor.”
“I’m...not.”
“You are.” He imbued the words with steel conviction. “You survived the swamp. Years of solitude. A homicidal alligator, for Hyperion’s sake. And you’ve survived these nightmares. Countless times before.”
Amryssa was screaming. So was Olivian and everyone else, their cries saturating the walls, vibrating up through the floors.
I was losing.
I knew before it happened, anticipated the break of the dam just before the flood carried me away.
The nightmare ripped me from the haven of Ky’s arms. He called my name—once, twice, again, but I couldn’t hear him anymore.
I was drowning, dragged into the depths by the monsters that would gnaw me into nothingness. I tried to claw my way back, but he was gone, my bright oasis swathed by darkness.
I sank into the murky fathoms. Down, down, down, to where nothing remained but the screaming.
15.
Consciousness seeped in, layer by layer.
Soft, gray light.
A steady heartbeat. Pattering rain.
Then pain. Lots of it. Deep and old, laced along the framework of my skeleton.
I groaned and forced my lashes apart, expecting an eyeful of ceiling. Instead, I got a rain-studded windowpane, an expanse of red sheets, and a bare, solid chest beneath my cheek.
