Page 192 of Golden Queen
My heart thundered in my chest again as I saw the room.
It wasourroom, down to the tiniest detail, just as I had seen it in my dream of that other life that might have been.
The smooth stone tiles of the floor were covered in thick rugs, the enormous bed draped in curtains of dark blue and white.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled one entire corner. Comfortable furniture was spread around, creating individual spaces, and of course, the massive fireplace sat opposite the bed with its fire already burning bright.
I took a few steps into the room. It was carved from the inside of the mountain with bare rock arching up to a high-domed ceiling hung with massive dark chandeliers.
The only side that wasn’t mountain was that huge wall of windows—glass double doors opening onto a terrace made from a jutting ledge of the mountain itself.
I didn’t need to look to know it was the ledge my feet had been tipping over in that dream.
I turned from the sight of that ledge, deciding to ignore it for the rest of what that dream had yielded. I found myself in his arms in our room—in our home—in the mountain—under the devastatingly beautiful Darkwatch sky.
We ate a simple meal left for us on a silver tray at the bedside—cold cuts of chicken, cheese, and soft bread.
As he laid me atop all those impossibly soft furs, my heart cried out that I could make that dream real. I could have that life I had glimpsed in my dream. I only needed to trust him.
Afterward, he fell asleep inside me. We lay on our sides, facing each other, with my leg hooked over his hip.
I could not take my eyes off him. He looked so peaceful in sleep, his brow smoothed of the tension that always seemed to lace his features in the day. He was still and calm, as though the shadows that writhed just beneath his skin were only truly cleared away in unconsciousness.
I looked at his closed eyes with their heavy fringe of dark lashes that cast such a long shadow on his cheeks in the warm firelight. I fiercely wished he would open them—that he would look at me with that adoring gaze. I somehow knew it would be as bright as the daytime sky.
When I finally slept, I dreamed of that life I should have had, but it was disjointed and wrong. Sometimes we were in Albiyn, and the babe I cradled in my arms was pale and fish-like. Its tiny fingers were webbed by translucent film, and the sharp fin down its back poked into my arms, cutting me as I tried to hold the child.
Other times, we were in the godsgrass, and I could not find Io, Arkadian, or Tatana. Even Franca was in the tall grass somewhere…in danger…hurt or...I frantically ran, pushing aside the godsgrass as it sliced into the backs of my arms, cutting me to the bone.
I woke with a start, heart racing. I was not filled with the terror or the roiling nausea that came from the other dreams, though. These dreams didn’t mean anything. There was nothing in them of the memory of my trauma or of prophecy and divination. They were just stupid, disjointed, ridiculous nightmares.
Waiting for my heartbeat to normalize, I realized Io was hard inside me again. When his hands slid down my body, I moved on him, letting the feel of him inside me and the soaring of my heartbeat for an entirely different reason, chase away the dreams.
He was absolutely everything to me as I watched him shift and rise over me. His powerful body blotted out the room, the scent of him on every ragged inhalation. The sound of him whispering my name, the feel of him moving inside me, lips, tongue, teeth exploring me, big fingers by turns softly caressing and roughly holding me—pulling me to him with his hands wreathed in golden fire.
When I slept again, it was the shuddering of my pleasure-wracked body that chased me into unconsciousness. I did not dream again. I floated in some peaceful void of endless darkness with only the light of the aurora for company. I thought I could almost...very nearly…hear the music that made them dance.
Thirty-Three
Iwoke to find Io already out of bed, talking to a servant framed in the doorway. He spoke casually, familiarly, as though interacting with a peer or another noble. I knew it was a servant, though, because he carried a tray into the room, keeping his eyes averted from me even though I was under the covers up to my chin.
I smiled warmly at the man. Without turning his head, he gave me a slight nod of acknowledgment.
He was dressed finely, in a black tunic and pants with a symbol on the lapel—what I now knew to be the sigil of Darkwatch. Not a dragon, or fire, or the elderwood sword that represented their ancient duty as guardians of the realm, but a cluster of five-pointed stars—almost whimsical in its simplicity.
When the servant had gone, we had a delicious breakfast laid out for us on a table in front of the massive wall of windows. I also had a pile of fresh clothing and the promise that more were being procured for me with all due haste.
"You talked to him like a person," I said, as I seated myself at the table and began to dig into the food.
Io looked at me, baffled. "Heisa person."
"I know that! But I've never heard someone speak so...casually to a servant or heard them answer as he did."
"You'll find a great many things different about Darkwatch, Sera. For starters, we don't have a servant's class. Tarkiel is a chef—a damned good one—and he's paid well for his services. As are the maids who clean the chambers. And I can't even take credit for that. It’s been this way in Darkwatch since the first of the druids found this valley and decided to carve out the fortress from the mountain."
I smiled. "Well, I like it," I said. The servants in Albiyn had never been paid enough to make existing outside servitude possible. I had always been overwhelmed with guilt over their treatment in Windemere.
It was refreshing to be able to live without the great lie of my existence—that I was somehow special or better than anyone because of my name—one that I was becoming more and more convinced didn’t belong to me at all.
