Page 126 of Fate Calls the Elf Queen

Someone shook her body; a deep voice kept saying her name. “Valeen. Valeen. Wake up.”

She couldn’t stop screaming. Thane’s lifeless body stared back at her, accusing.

Condemning.

She left him there alone.

With a gasp, she opened her eyes. Before her was a dark halo of hair, a beautiful face—Hel. He gripped her shoulders, his chest heaved up and down. She was already sitting up, feet hanging over the edge of the bed, touching the floor.

Her throat felt raw and sweat dampened her brow. “Hel?”

His usual smug or bored expression was lined with tension. “Gods, you scared the piss out of me.”

The image of Thane hanging dead made her want to throw up. She couldn’t shake it. “Thane. What if something happened to him? We have to go back!” It felt too real. She tried to get up and he held her tighter, keeping her in place.

“You were dreaming. He’s fine.”

Tears burned her eyes even though she tried to rationalize the image of Thane dead wasn’t real. She had been dreaming, like he said. But what if it was a prophetic dream? “We have to go back. I have to see him and make sure he’s alright.”

“Tell me about it.”

“He was—” The words felt like dust in her mouth. “Someone hung him in his room.”

Hel sighed, and it sounded more like relief than frustration. “You know how I know it wasn’t real?”

“How?”

“Because War could never be hung to death. As if he couldn’t snap the rope with his strength or magic?”

She breathed deeper.He’s right. It was only a dream.It didn’t make the image any less terrifying.“Where have you been?”

He stood up and the heaviness of his grip on her shoulders lifted. He headed for the door as if he wasn’t going to answer. “I’ll explain in the morning. Go back to sleep.”

“I saw the demon.”

He halted and slowly turned. “Where? When?”

“Through the hole in the wall. I only saw red glowing eyes, but it must be him.”

“And you fear that if he’s here then Thane is dead. That’s why you had the nightmare.”

“What if—”

“He’s not.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know. I’d feel it if he was gone, and you probably would too.”

Layala’s brows tugged down. “Feel it?”

“Despite everything. He’s my blood. My brother. That last time he died, in the life before this, I felt him go, like a sharp pain in my chest. And it was the same pain for you. I found your body in the barn. We’d only met days before, but I knew you were special.” He swallowed and had a far-off look on his face. “You were barely seventeen. I ran to fight whoever it was, and felt the sting moments before I found War’s body still bleeding out. He and I had been friends for a couple years. None of us remembered who we truly were but still, I let the assassin kill me after that. I didn’t even fight. I felt I’d lost everything in one moment. I gave up.”

“You’d only met me days before?” She thought about that. “I wonder if when the three of us are together it creates a power that they can sense.”

“Something like that.”

“You remember the other times?”

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