“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Having officers out there, in the thick of it—without knowing what they’re getting into—was never a good idea.”
“Ronnie wouldn’t have stayed off that bridge, no matter what was on it. And don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s not like you brought the monsters here.”
A pang struck my chest, as if Yaslynne’s psychic energies felt his words. Is it possible? She was empathic. But if Yaslynne’s ghost was somehow acknowledging the problem she created, was it owning her actions, regretting them, or taking issue with the insinuation?
Another, worrisome thought hit me. “Any strange reports out of the Chandler neighborhood? Have you been by the house at all?”
“No. Was I supposed to?”
“Definitely not.”
My forceful tone didn’t go unnoticed. “What don’t I know?” he said.
“Probably a few things. And I will tell you. But there’s something I need to say first.” I gestured at the weight bench. He sat beside me and I turned toward him. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For looking after this place. For believing in me. For knowing I wouldn’t ditch you. You had no idea where I was, if I was coming back, or if I was even alive. But you held on. You stepped up and took care of this city when I couldn’t.”
He grinned through an embarrassed shrug. “What are sidekicks for?”
I laughed, and something I hadn’t seen in a long time leapt into his eyes. “It’s good to see you happy.”
“Hell yeah, I’m happy.” Evans leaned in and bumped my shoulder. “We’re getting the band back together.”
Thirty-Five
A dedicated stalker was predictable in their daily patterns. Those obsessed enough to still be looking for you after almost two months without a sighting, more so. It only took a few hours of walking the streets to catch his attention. Luring him some place empty and quiet at midnight on Christmas Eve wasn’t a problem. But I didn’t merely want seclusion. I wanted somewhere that might stir his memories. I wanted to give him one last chance.
I chose the old drawbridge at the northern edge of the city.
Constructed when the Sentinel was young, the design was sturdy and reliable more than aesthetic. It was one lane in each direction and didn’t connect to the highway. There as no park or walkway for tourists, just a few muddy fishing spots and a wan street light on the road above. It wasn’t a landmark to anyone but me.
On the bank beneath the drawbridge, inside an old drainage tube, was the exit that first brought me here. The pipe’s entrance was closed off and secured now. Then, the exit was new. There was no one to guard it or stop my entrance to this world.
I’d been full of nageun venom that night. I barely recalled crawling through the pipe and tumbling down the embankment to the base of the bridge. But I remembered after, falling asleep against the stone pedestal, staring as I was now at the single full moon in the sky.
Ronan came through here a few days later. Maybe he’d remember, too.
I wandered along the water’s edge for a handful of minutes before his lyrriken scent hit me. Near silent footsteps rustled near the guard rail. A hint of his trauma leaked out, waking my empathy. I quelled my reaction, letting him come.
When the shadow of Ronan’s ghosts crept over the ground, I spun and put my blade to his throat. His features were haggard and pale. His body stunk of sweat and alcohol. I pushed my sympathy aside and got to the point. “You’ve got five seconds to help me decide what to do with this knife.” I pressed the edge in tighter. “You led me to Gant, and I’m grateful. But you killed that store clerk, Ronan. You cut him and that policewoman down, like their lives meant nothing.”
“They didn’t,” he said. “They were human.”
“Fuck you and your dragon-fed, anti-human, propaganda bullshit. Veronica Lane was alive. Now she isn’t. Because of you.”
My blade nicked his skin as he shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. They don’t matter. I don’t matter,” he said, catching and holding my eyes. I used to love how they spoke of mischief and passion. Now, they were an empty void.
I lowered the knife. “I don’t know what to do with you.”
“Yes, you do. I’m a danger to this city. I’m a monster, like all the others you put down. That’s all I am now. So quit avoiding me and accept it.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you, Ronan. I—”
“Stop hiding,” he snarled, “and do what needs to be done.”
“And what’s that?”
“Your damn job.”
“So that’s why you’ve been prowling around my apartment and breaking into the gym? That’s what you want? Suicide by Dahlia Nite?”
“There’s only one thing I ever wanted.”
“Don’t say me. And don’t you dare say you love me. Because you had more fucking chances to prove it than you ever deserved.”
“Not after we came here. I wasn’t enough, then. I wasn’t human enough.”
“Bullshit. You weren’t honest enough.”
“You want honesty? You used to be my light. Even when we weren’t together, I always felt you, always heard your voice. You kept me sane, Dahl. Now, when I think of you, it’s like being shredded into pieces—inch by inch by fucking inch!” he seethed, trembling as a new cloud of trauma emerged. It dropped off and crept toward me. More pumped out, heavy and thick. Shiny. Fresh.
This isn’t right. I’d known Ronan’s ghosts for nearly a hundred years. He was good at validating his actions. He was proud of his crimes. Very little of what he did left an imprint on his soul. Now, after his time with Naalish, so much pain was woven into Ronan’s psyche and tangled around his memories. Each recollection of his former life, each thought of me or anything that once brought him joy, now brought only misery and grief.
There was no way to stop it or ease his suffering, as I had for Evans. Ronan’s pain was too deeply entrenched in his soul. Pulling a single string could unravel him into something even more dangerous.
“I’m sorry, Ronan. You didn’t deserve this. You—”
His fist came out of nowhere. Lip bursting, blood spraying onto his hand as he struck me again, Ronan grabbed my arm and wrenched the knife from my hand. His third, rapid punch sent me staggering. Letting scales free on my hands and face, I fought back. Ramming a fist into his side, and another up under his chin, he recoiled, I thrust the sole of my boot into his chest. He staggered back and came back with a growl. But it was the blatant gleam of murder in his gaze that made Ronan’s intentions clear.
Pissed, I summoned my fire and exploded the patch of ground in between us. Dirt shot high as the blaze flared, blinding against the dark. Ronan raised an arm to protect his face. Heat scorched his hand, and he retreated a step, eyeing the burn.
“Nice,” he praised, his voice husky with exertion. “You always were full of surprises. Like going after the Market. I didn’t think you’d take the bite.”
“You know me, Ronan. I can’t resist the lure of a good body dump.”
“Naalish won’t stand for it. Just because she hasn’t struck yet, doesn’t mean—”
“Oh, she struck,” I assured him. “Hard.”
“Wait—that’s where you’ve been? I knew it. I knew you didn’t skip town. But if the Guild took you… What happened? Naalish wouldn’t just let you go.”
“Normally, no. But she wasn’t in any position to stop me.”
“You hurt her? You hurt a dragon?”
“It caught me by surprise, too.”
Irritated by the barrier of fire between us, Ronan kicked dirt onto the smoldering remains as he advanced with a stunned, “How? How did you do it? Are you all right?”
“Stop. You can’t attack me one second, then worry about me the next.”
“Why? Because you have someone else to worry over you now?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Who is it? The cop who follows you around like a stray? Or that detective? I’ve seen
you two together. I’ve watched you flirt with him. The way he hovers over you, showing up at your apartment, bringing you coffee.”
“Well, coffee is the way to my heart.”
“Does he know what he’s sleeping with?”
“Fuck you, Ronan. You know nothing about Alex Creed. Or me.”
“I know you’ll be the death of him, of all of them.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m the goddamn grim reaper. But you know what you are, Ronan? A goddamn broken record. And I’m sick of it.” I rushed him. “I know what you’re doing. Trying to piss me off, to make me fight you—to give you an excuse. If you want to hurt me, then go ahead. Man-up and do it. Do it!” I gave him a hard shove.
Growling, Ronan lashed out. He stabbed at my chest, and I spun to the side. Grabbing his wrist, I twisted and forced it back. As he cried out and dropped the knife, I threw a punch at his face. Then another. And another. And one more because I was done playing around. Hooking my leg around his, I dumped Ronan on the ground.
I bent to pick up the blade, and he pulled me down on top of him.
His hands clutched, trying to thwart my reach for the knife. I threw off his attempts, then ended them altogether as I seized his throat and straddled him.
I was on top, and I was staying there.
But as I stared down at the torn, bloody mess I’d made of his human features, a twinge of sympathy surfaced. His ghosts took advantage of my interest and surged out, striking my empathic barrier and dissolving it like paper in the rain. His rage spiked my pulse. Anxiety and fear pushed the breath fast through my lungs. Sorrow weighed my body down.
I narrowed my focus to force his trauma away—and a sharp pressure pierced my chest. Ronan had recovered the knife.
I looked down. The blade inside me was dangerously close to my heart. Blood was oozing to wet the steel. But penetration was minimal. Ronan was holding the weapon in place, keeping the wound from being fatal. In hesitation, I wondered, or challenge?
I decided to find out.
“What do you think is faster?” I said, hiding the pain behind a taunting grin. “My fire or,” I glanced again at the weapon he’d taken from me, “my blade?”
He struggled to push words past my grip on his throat. “Come with me.”
“What? Where?”
“We’ll do it together.” Ronan’s gaze zipped to the knife. “We’ll leave this fucking world. Leave them all. No one can control us. No one can hurt us, ever again.”
“You can’t say the word commitment, but you expect me to die with you?” Blood burbled out as I laughed, “Shit that hurts. Are you sure Naalish cut off your balls, because—” I gasped as he pushed the blade in a fraction more.
“One good shove, Dahl. That’s all it would take.”
Heating my hands, I scalded his neck. “What do you want from me?”
“Decide which of us dies.” He wiggled the knife, releasing more blood. “Decide now, or I’ll do it for you.”
Suffering with the choice more than the pain, my defenses wobbled again. I wasn’t surprised. My resolve was untrustworthy where Ronan was concerned. But this was different. My attention wasn’t split. I wasn’t overcome. My barriers weren’t collapsing. They were being dropped. But not by me. My defenses were lowering in direct proportion to the heat rising in the foreign object in my chest.
Yaslynne’s eye was using my empathy to lure out Ronan’s dark emotions.
And I couldn’t stop it.
The organ pulsed with a familiar tug, coaxing harder and harder, until his trauma poured over me like a bucket of ice water. I gasped from the sudden invasion of cold. It still wasn’t enough to douse the fire in my chest, as the oval smoldered hot and bright. The fabric covering the piece burned away. My jacket and shirt turned black and crispy. The cloth dissolved and exposed the amber-colored eye beneath.
The glow radiating from my chest hit Ronan’s face, highlighting the shock carved into his features. “Dahl?” His trembling hand slipped off the knife. His gaze darted to mine. “What the fuck is that?”
I couldn’t answer. Yaslynne’s psychic residue had hijacked my ability. But the process had woken something in me. Not woken. Sharpened. Ronan’s agony was clear before. Now, it stung, biting like thousands of tiny teeth within the black. I felt his ghosts more acutely than ever before. I knew how each one twisted and scarred, gnawing at him with the same endless hunger as the blight devoured the land. I experienced their weight, the power they held over him—the power they held. I saw how little light remained in his soul, and I understood what Yaslynne was showing me.
There really is nothing left of him to save.
With that doubt erased, one simple notion remained. Him or me.
It was no longer a question. And it would take so little effort.
I gripped harder to Ronan’s trauma, enticing it up and into me. Sounds pushed from his shuddering lips. His confusion and fear registered, but not the words. They were as meaningless as the steel in my chest. Ronan was no longer a threat. Nor was he the lyrriken I’d known and loved. He was the pain and the power at my fingertips. A husk of grief, rage, and regret. He was an energy to be absorbed and used; a necessary fuel to pry open my mind, expand my empathic sight and—
What the hell is that?
A strange, pale sheen had faded into view. The nearly translucent, shimmery glaze was growing at an alarming rate, layering the water, the bridge, the grass, every structure and object in sight. It drifted in the air, vibrating and sparking, like it carried a current. In places, it twinkled, beautiful and brilliant. Others were riddled with minute, dark cracks. Some of the fissures were larger. Their edges were jagged and broken, like weakened glass seconds from shattering. Is this…?
It must be.
The ethereal veil.
The fabric separating this world from the others was somehow visible.
And it didn’t look too healthy.
Is this what Naalish sees? There was no denying her psychic abilities were strong. If she could perceive the veil, if this was the energy she spoke of—and Drimera’s protective layer was in worse shape than this—no wonder she was worried.
My expanded sight had somehow been fueled by Ronan’s trauma. But the power his ghosts gave me was waning, and the film was dissipating. Not yet, I thought. There was so much I didn’t understand. How could I attempt to close the exits and heal the veil between the worlds, if I didn’t know how it worked?
Desperate to comprehend, I drained off more of Ronan’s trauma.
But it did nothing. My ability to see the veil faded until it was gone.
Except, it wasn’t my ability. It was Yaslynne’s.
How fucking strong was she?
Merely an imprint of her power had remained in the trauma scar staining the Chandler’s living room floor. But it was enough to recognize my ability, reach out through my vision of the crime scene, and latch on. Quickly, I thought, because I’d barely noticed the eye around Ella’s neck, barely looked at it. I’d spent far more time gaping at the small body of her daughter, Carly, watching the girl’s eyes as they stared intently in my direction. I’d been so convinced she could—
Comprehension rushed in with a breathy, “Son of a bitch.”
All this time, I thought Carly Chandler had seen me inside the death-glimpse. But it was never her looking at me. It was the psychic remnant of a very powerful dragon forming her connection.
Yaslynne saw me that day. She looked at me, and I looked back.
For months, I’d been afraid of opening the door. But I already did.
“Shit!” I cried out, abruptly aware of the body convulsing in my grip. Blood striped Ronan’s face as it ran from his eyes, nose, and mouth. His trembling had widened the hole in my chest, making it messier—bringing me slowly closer to permanent death.
Him or me.
With a violent, instinctive heave, I bled the last morsels of pain from Ronan’s soul. But it wasn’t the usual, shadowy black. A light came with it, an energy t
hat coiled around his ghosts. Both flowed into me, and his convulsions slowed to a stop. His body stilled. His skin was as pale as the moon above. I eased my cramped fingers from his throat to check for a pulse. Nothing. Ronan was dead. Somehow, I’d emptied his body of both pain and life. And it was as easy as overturning a cup of water.
Pain demanding my attention, I yanked the knife out with a clinched-mouth cry. Blood rushed out to soak the front of me. I tossed the knife and moved to sear the hole, but the flow had lessened to a trickle. My skin tingled. It’s healing, I thought, staring at the wound in confusion. I’d never had an injury mend so swiftly before. Oh, no... Was my body repairing itself with the life it took from Ronan?
Disgust moved through me, then a quiver. I sat up, expecting to vomit.
I’d never felt more like a monster.
But the agitation, like a flutter of wings, had another source.
I may have taken Ronan’s ghosts, but they weren’t mine to keep. They were agitated, restless. Instinct (or perhaps the eye) told me not to let go. Hold onto them for a while longer. Use what I acquired. It was how the first exit was opened—with the stolen pain of others.
Dread crept cold through my veins, as I thought back to the exit that sprung to life in the factory basement. Was it me? Did Yaslynne do something? Had simply connecting to the scar, reading the trauma it held, trigger the exit to open?
The answer scared me, but I had no time to consider it. Pressure built like a geyser inside me. It bolted up, and Ronan’s ghosts shot out, fleeing my body in a jet of black. Their abrupt exodus left me on my back, gasping. The eye was a cold, heavy thing in my chest. Ronan’s trauma was spilled over the ground, layering the grass like a glossy puddle of tar. Pooling, it seeped beneath his body to permanently scar the spot where he died.
In time, the scar would eat through and damage the veil. An exit would form. The blight would come through. And it would be my fault.
I wore the eye and used its power. I found the place where Yaslynne died. I allowed the ghosts of a dead dragon queen inside me. Now, I’d created a scar capable of bringing the looming apocalypse a tiny bit closer—and turned someone I’d loved my whole life into evidence in need of disposal.
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