by D. Fischer
“It’s a provoked hornet’s nest,” Jaemes mumbles. Uncomfortable, he fumbles with the strap of his bow nestled over his shoulder.
I look to him, my eyebrows furrowed. “You know what hornets are?”
He huffs. “Why do you continue to think so little of me?”
“It’s a talent,” I say quickly. I turn my attention back to Erline before he can respond. “Where’s the sandman?”
She flicks her thumb over her shoulder. “With the children, telling tales of his realm. They’ve taken a quick liking to him.”
“Excellent. Come,” I say to Jaemes, taking charge. He bristles to the order, mumbles something about the rules of being a mascot, and I allow myself a small grin of a temporary victory.
I should expect retaliation for it, I think to myself.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KATRIANE DUPONT
GUARDIAN REALM
The chill from the land has long since creeped into my bones and numbed my toes despite the elves’ warm furs and cloths. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, contemplating what Fate had proclaimed.
Fate’s absence is felt as clearly as the bite of frigid air. I don’t know what he meant when he said he’d always be with me. What am I to him? Another pawn in a grand scheme?
I do, however, hold his last words close.
Find your future in your heart. Seek Hope with your eyes. Discover the greatness of Choice. And whatever you do, don’t cling to Despair.
I wish more than anything I could go back in time and change what was, to bring Myla back or undo the curse I set into motion. She would still be a spirit in Erline’s grip if it weren’t for me. But this can’t be fixed. What’s done is done, and there’s no sense in pondering it further. Fixing what was will never be my fate. No. My fate rests in the future of all that is around me, in the beating hearts I seem to hold in my hands, and in the realms who have no other savior. Clinging to Myla, to all the deaths, is my disparity. My future is with the living and my choice to be their hope.
But how do I quench the darkness?
A twig snaps behind me, muffled by blankets of snow. I quickly look over my shoulder, around the bark of the tree I rest upon, and into Dyson’s kind, glowing green eyes.
He holds up his hands, a gesture of peace, while pausing in his wade through thick snow drifts. “Kat,” he calls, a tone so warm my numb fingers tingle.
His gentle gaze travels away from my eyes to my middle. I follow it, wondering what holds him captive there, and lift my hand out in front of me. The flames are at the ready, tugging at the tips of my nail beds.
I close my fist and squeeze my eyes shut with obvious embarrassment, willing the fire to retreat.
Carefully and cautiously, he closes the distance between us, stopping when he stands before me. His body’s heat radiates as his frame blocks the wind, and his scent replaces the crisp dry air with wafts of a delicious aroma only belonging to Dyson.
When he doesn’t say anything, I slowly open my eyes and study the side of his face. Instead of returning my gaze or even announcing why he sought for me, he stares at the frozen lake just as I have for the past several hours. The way his eyes shift to each object makes me wonder if he is searching for inner peace, too.
In a visual caress, I sweep the expanse of his ivory skin, taking advantage of his momentary distraction. He causes me pause, and his touch had extinguished my inner turmoil on the Death Realm. I want to know why.
His jaw curves at just the right angle, and his lashes touch the bridge of his brow, casting shadows across his cheeks whenever he blinks. They’re impossibly long and thick, and though black, they glint like slick ice.
Just under his chin is a birthmark, shaped like a tiny teardrop but with more jagged edges. His jaw is encased in the beginnings of thick stubble. Around his neck is chafed skin where a rope had strangled the life from him during his first death.
His thick coat rustles as he tucks his hands into his pockets. I watch his chest expand and his nostrils flare while he breathes in every scent, cataloging it in a way every animal does when they arrive at a new place. The glow in his eyes brightens when he does, just for a moment, before returning to a normal wolf shifter hue.
The glow of a shifter’s eyes doesn’t happen often. Usually when their wolf is agitated or angered, the animal will make itself known like this. But he’s not in any danger here. Not with me.
Even as I think those words, I doubt myself, and my lips pinch at my own limitations.
Despite being in an unfamiliar realm, he’s so sure of what he is and his place in this world. Every part of him looks like it’s connected to nature in a way I can’t understand. In a way I’ll never have. And yet, gazing at him is more peaceful than the landscape I’ve been trying to soak in, as though all my answers are with him.
“Why are you here?” I ask, slightly breathless. I hadn’t realized I had been holding my breath, distracted by his close proximity, seemingly memorizing every curve and finding beauty in the flaws.
Dyson’s scent calls to me with a new gust of wind, a content hum where the cold fingers wrap my heart.
Unknowingly, I almost step forward. My center of gravity shifts, and his hand snaps from his coat, gripping my elbow to steady me. The touch is hot, searing, and my stomach clenches. I swallow and double blink to the sensation.
It’s not unnerving - this sensation. It’s like aloe to a festering burn. A relief to a deep pain.
Slightly tilting his head, he considers me from the corners of his eyes. “Because you are,” he says, his voice gruff, the wolf speaking for him.
I frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I don’t need a rescuer.
Then why haven’t you backed away? Why drag him down with you? my conscience mocks.
With a shudder, he turns his body fully toward me and searches my face just as I had done to him. His bottom lip twitches, finding the right words, and I’m drawn to it.
Have his lips always been this dark of a red?
Slowly, his gloveless hand lifts from my elbow, and he trails the fingers across my jawline. I suck in a sharp breath, my teeth chilling. The direct touch sends a shiver over my frozen body, a wave of luscious warmth. A ghostly smile tugs at his lips this time before it fades with the weight of his next words.
“I see you, Katriane DuPont,” he mumbles.
His breath fans my face. Mint. Clove. Freshly shaved pine. And something sweet like peaches. I inhale greedily, like a newborn's first breath, and sag against his hand.
He leans in closer. “I see you.”
In the space between us, his eyes glow a brighter green, and I meet them to greet his wolf with a different expression than when he first arrived. My face relaxes, my eyes water, and my soul rejoices.
“And what do you see?” I whisper back, asking the wolf and the man.
“Wariness. Blame. Heartache,” he says. “A search for who you truly are.”
“Oh?” I ask, attempting to square my jaw with defiance and failing miserably.
Dyson leans forward, guided by his wolf. “Do not hide from me, Dragon. I see you.”
As if called from within, the dragon side of me returns the glow of eyes, green meshing with orange in the small space between us.
“I hide to survive,” I answer, raspy with my confession.
Dyson’s lips curve in a small smile with triumph. “There you are,” he coos, ignoring my words, for he knows they’re as false as they sound. I hide because I’m scared, and he knows it.
His fingers lower from my jaw and brush their way to the nape of my neck. The touch is featherlike, and despite my newly warmed body, I shiver. It’s enough to snap me from his spell.
“Why do you care?” I ask, turning my head away from his touch and denying myself what he offers - a white knight sent to slay the dark villain.
“I chose to save you, and freely so,” I press on, wanting him to understand that having me in his life would only mean disaster. Nobody needs my problems t
ethered to them. “You owe me nothing, and I don’t need you to return the favor. I can deal with this on my own.”
Seek Hope with your eyes.
Dyson’s hand hangs in the air, giving me a moment to collect myself. Carefully, he pulls his other hand from his coat pocket, cups my cheeks with gentle fingers, and tilts my face back to his. “I will always care for you, Katriane DuPont. You are more to me than the stars, than the moon that calls me to the trees.” He swallows, emotions thick in his next words. “You mean more to me than what’s left of my pathetic soul. You’re my gravity. Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same.”
He leans in, his nose almost touching mine. “How could I not see you for what you are?”
Does he truly see me? For the darkness that I’ve become?
“What does this mean?” I ask while his nose inches dangerously close to mine.
“I think you know exactly what this means,” he mumbles, and my eyelids flutter once more as I greedily steal the scent of his voice.
Feelings like this shouldn’t be immediate, but even I can’t deny what’s happening. My heart swells, and my mind clears with only future metaphorical visions of him. I allow myself to dream of what a brush of lips would feel like, of what years of being in his arms would mean and how I’d soak in every moment of it, afraid to close my eyes in case it might be the last. Even my darkness can’t banish what’s clearly and undeniably here. It basks like a sore body in warm waters.
I exhale his scent, and clarity returns when the wind steals it from me. My eyes widen, and I pull from his grasp. “No,” I state, firm.
Ducking under his arms, I scoot around him but not before I catch the look - the one that tells me I had just shattered his heart into a million pieces. I had painfully denied him.
His eyes follow mine, and his wolf retreats inside him, wounded by my refusal.
“No,” I shake my head and close my eyes tightly, banishing his crumpled face from my vision.
I hear the swish of his coat as he stuffs his hands in his pockets once more. He’s silent. Too silent, wordlessly waiting until I collect myself, until I can courageously return his gaze and name him a liar for what he claims I am.
Guarded, he considers me under his long lashes. His expression is simple like a parent waiting for a child’s tantrum to subside. I bristle.
“Yes,” he decides, challenging me to deny him. His voice is deep, firm and sure, full of an emotion I’ve never had directed at me.
Shaking my head in small denials, I stare square back in his eyes, and for a long while, we look at each other. Each soul probes for a glimpse of the other. Each soul begs the other. I huff my breaths, fighting against it.
The wind rustles his dark hair. The snow swirls around him. The branches creak. He looks like the white Knight I see him as, and he feels all too right in what he claims we are.
But still, I deny it. “I can’t be your mate,” I whisper, the breeze carrying it to him. “I’m not a wolf. I’m only a witch. A dragon. I’m nobody except a pawn in a game I don’t know how to play.”
“You are my mate,” he says in the same tone. “You are not, and will never be, my pawn.”
Hearing the words uttered from his mouth snaps me, an internal switch that’s been grasping for reality for hours. I hold up a hand to silence the rest of his declarations. “I’m not.”
And with that, I leave the conversation, and Dyson, behind, turning on my heel and pushing through the snow. With every step away from him, my darkness returns, and I work to shove him and his lingering touch from my mind before I reach the village.
AIDEN VANDER
GUARDIAN REALM
Down the way, past a few teepees, I watch as a woman with short black hair crosses the forest line. She stomps into the village and disappears inside a hut with a snap to the fur door. I recognize her from the Death Realm as the one who turned into a dragon. Fear wafts from her in waves, but it is not the village who she fears. It is herself.
My goal has been to seek out this woman, but something tells me she’s as much of a slave as I am to Corbin. I’ll have to approach her at a different time because I have no doubt she will gain the upper hand as soon as she sorts herself out. Then, and only then, can she be a true asset to my plans if I can convince her to be.
In front of me, a female elf clears her throat to gain my attention to the task at hand. I murmur my apology and take what she offers when she hands me a chunk of charred meat. Her shocked look at the fluent elvish accurately flicking from my tongue doesn’t go unnoticed.
Just as the others, this elf doesn’t want us here, and her sneer is hard to miss despite my obvious gratitude. None of them do. This much is clear by the stares like needles sliding through each vertebrae of my spine.
Eliza watches them with extreme curiosity akin to the study of a true scientist. Since Dyson dived into the trees and left us to our own devices, she and I have immersed ourselves in the village atmosphere in hopes of distracting ourselves from the future. We both know I’ll be leaving soon, and it hangs in the air between us, clogging all the words we want to share with each other but allowing the interference not to.
We strode down each snow beaten path, hand in hand. Eliza had bent down to giggling children and tugged on the pointed ear of the littlest one. Their mothers weren’t happy about it, but they allowed it nonetheless. We even watched warriors leave on their matuas, a mission clearly in mind. During all this, we never once discussed anything of importance.
Despite the lack of exchange, she hovered, afraid I’d disappear at any second without a single goodbye. And I let her because I, too, felt the same.
I clear my thoughts, wondering what I can say to ease her rigid form, but there are too many prying eyes and just as many listeners. As soon as I know she’s safe and settled, I’ll leave and make sure it stays that way. She is my only priority. My only reason for living and the only reason I’ve been semi-accepted here.
After Eliza is gifted her portion, we slowly head to the teepee Erma had dubbed ours, passing the sandman along the way. He’s been chucking questions to the shifters since Dyson left, consuming their focus so they don’t feel obligated to go after him. Packs seem to be funny that way, hovering just as Eliza and I are doing with each other.
It’s a dark world, a dark time, we find ourselves in, and we fear that each exchange with the ones we love will be our last. We can’t leave the other for fear we will never see them again, for worry that something will happen to them if we aren’t there to stand in harm's way.
These are my worries as well, and it nearly brings me to my knees each time it rises in my thoughts.
I lift the teepee fur door, allowing Eliza to duck inside. Before I follow her through, I watch Dyson shuffle back into the village, his head hung with shame. Whatever happened in the woods with Kat, he isn’t too proud of. He has his own demons to battle, and unfortunately, being refused is a mental war he’ll have to win himself.
He lifts his eyes, feeling my gaze. The worry lines are prominent on his face, and he doesn’t bother to hide them behind a false grin. I recognize the look - that feeling. I had felt it the first time I saw Eliza in her dreams. It’s the knowledge he’ll never truly have what he seeks, not while they’re emotionally worlds apart. The dragon has to accept herself for who she is, as do I. I sympathize with her more than I do with Dyson.
He loves the dragon, but she doesn’t love him.
I nod to him once, a reassurance which feels fake even to myself. But he returns it solemnly, and then his pack and the sandman swarm, beating him with questions like a mob of curious teenagers.
Ducking inside, I find Eliza already seated pretzel style and biting into her first chunk of meat. Hers appears less charred than mine, and I wonder if that’s on purpose. Eliza’s kind soul is palpable to even those who don’t feed from emotion.
I stand like a fool for some time, my own meat heavy in my hands, before she swallows and lifts her eyes to mine. Instead of warm atte
ntion, it’s filled with dread and a slightly trembling lip. She worries for me as much as I do for her.
“Are you going to sit?” she asks me tentatively. “Or are you finally going to ask the question that’s been on the tip of your tongue since we came to this realm?”
My lips curve at the edges, adoring her forwardness. The woman is perceptive.
I sit next to her, kick out my feet, and lay on my side along the fur carpet. Running my tongue over my top teeth, I hand her my food.
She frowns. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“This isn’t what I eat,” I mumble.
Dawning widens her eyes, and heat floods her cheeks, rosy in the center and dusty pale pink around the edges. Her attitude is tentative toward me like she’s conversing with a stranger. I don’t like it and wish for a moment we could go back to the way things used to be: Easy.
“So,” she says, taking another bite. “What is it?”
I lift an eyebrow. “The meat?”
She scowls, and I find the chastising expression adorable. “No. What’s on your mind?”
I raise the other eyebrow. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Stopping mid-chew, she observes me with frigid muscles firming her cheeks.
“Really, Eliza.” I shift my elbow underneath me for a more favorable position. “Are you going to tell me you can’t read my emotions as easily as I can read yours?”
“No.” She swallows, and I watch her throat constrict. “But I won’t pry. I want you to tell me on your own.”
She peers quickly at the carpet, my absent response dampening her normally forward attitude. I allow her to collect her thoughts, to give her a moment without me speaking.
“I still can’t believe they’re gone,” she sobs, speaking of our mothers.
Dyson had told us as much, the burden as great as when he murdered me. It had been a bigger blow to Eliza, knowing without doubt she’ll never see her mother again. The void is an ugly place, a place which strips you of everything you are. Their fate is there now, and there’s nothing we can do about it.