Page 31 of Wings of Lies
“You better train her and keep her pure. I’ll see you next year,” he commanded, then turned to me, sending me a suspicious glare.
Oh shit.
The funny feeling of being in two places at once increased. My stomach contents hit the back of my throat. I gagged them back down.
He shouldn’t be able to see me. This was a memory.
Or maybe this was a well-crafted dream, and the purple tint was just a coincidence. I’d wake up to find I didn’t burn down my house,there wasn’t a rune on my wrist, and my mind was playing severely deranged games with me.
He stepped away from her scrubbing and toward the hall. Jerking his head to the side, he motioned for me to follow him.
The fluttering of butterflies and hovering wasps kept my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as I followed him outside the house. We walked off the front porch and into the shadows of the night. Once we were far enough away from the house, he stopped and turned.
His eyes panned up and down my body, lingering on my face. “Who are you? What time did you come from?”
What time did I come from? What did he mean?“I?—”
A pulse resonated in my ears. My gaze shot to the white flame covering his hands. It looked like mine.
The immense heat shriveled the hairs on my fingers and made me sweat, soaking into my shirt.
I tried again, about to give him my name. “I?—”
“Spit it out before I send you back to the hell you came from. I may not be able to kill you. But burning alive in this time will damage your powers enough to prevent you from jumping to another dream.”
My mouth closed. I didn’t understand what he meant about jumping to another dream, nor did I care.
He wanted to burn me alive.
I stared into his cold, merciless eyes and heard it—the musical destruction of ice. His hateful words and the disgust curling his lip strummed the cord of pelting sleet. It didn’t matter if this purple-tinted dream was real or imagined. He awoke the icy vibrations deep within my core and enticed the melody of rage. With the nameless tune surfaced an incessant itch.
A slight purple shimmer flickered to the surface of my fingers, cooling the searing waves of heat that threatened to blister them. It thickened the purple haze. “You don’t recognize me?” I said, tilting my head to the side.
He huffed, flames heightening. “The only thing keeping you alive on this dream-walk is the fact I don’t know your name or maker. The council will need it to find and eradicate you and your makers.”
I lifted my lips in a fake smile.Maker? Would it matter to him that he threatened his potential daughter and himself? Does it matter to me?
The unusual, addictive melody said no. My heart? Well, I couldn’t currently feel it.
“This is my memory. I control it,” I declared.
His wrath changed to a strange, considering look. “No. It’smymemory you dream-walked into and gave power to. Invade the body, you relive the experience. Invade the memory, you give it and anyone in it the power to alter the memory. A poor mistake on your part.” He smirked, then charged me, swiping at my legs and sending me to the ground.
I coughed as the wind knocked out of me, surprised by his speed. I stared at the man who was supposed to be my father in this wretched memory-dream, hoping it was a lie. Hoping all of this was a lie.
A ball of flames bounced in his hands as he stared down at me. “Tell me your name, your maker, and the time you came from.”
I sank further into the jarring noise. The itch scurried from the tips of my fingers up to my shoulders. “Go to hell, Fa?—”
Searing heat flew toward my chest. I screamed, flinging up my arms and meeting his flames,burning alive.
I woke up gasping,my eyes darting to my arms, and slumped. They were a little muddy and damp from the dirty sleeves sticking to my wrists, but they didn’t hurt, and I wasn’t burning alive.
“It was just a dre—” I stopped, twisting my wrist to inspect the Binding Rune. It wasn’t a dream. I had dream-walked into his memory. At least, that was what he claimed. I lowered my head into my hands. The memory of the dream-walk had begun to fade, leaving me with my inactive rune, fragmented recollections of our conversation, and the unsettling knowledge someone was after me.
“Shit!” I lifted my head, eager to ask Oliver about dream-walks. Glancing around, I realized I sat in the tent he bought. I turned to my left, searching for him, and inhaled sharply.
The movement shot a line of pain from my shoulder down to my lower spine.
