Page 141 of Trials of Dusk and Dreams
The scene shifts. Now, I am in Queen Maebh’s opulent throne room in Elphyne.
She moves among my hive, her voice a poisonous whisper. “Legion is the First,” she murmurs, her lips curving into a cruel smile. “Do you think he won’t come for you all, one by one? He has the power. He has the right. You’re nothing but toys to him.”
Doubt flickers in each of my brothers’ eyes. It creeps into my heart.
Canary begins to pace. His golden feathers are ruffled, his eyes wild with paranoia. “He’s going to kill us,” he mutters over and over. “Legion will absorb us all. We’re not safe. We’re never safe so long as we are linked like this.”
I watch as my past self struggles with the decision, torn between protecting the hive and saving our brother. But Maebh’s whispers are too strong, the fear too deep. My past self finds our Canary pacing the length of a hallway, hands ripping out golden hair as he mutters repetitively, “He will come for me first. They all will.”
“You are a distraction,” my past self whispers to him, fingers reaching for a throat.
“No!” I bellow, trying to stop the scene from unfolding. But this has already happened.
And now I am no longer watching it but living it, feeling it as it sinks into my bones.
“I’m protecting us,” I hear myself say as my hands close around Canary’s throat. “I’m protecting the hive.”
My brothers are bystanders. Their watchful silence is permission, an accessory.
There is a fight. A struggle. A will to live. But I am the Second. Golden feathers float in the air, stained with blood. As the light in Canary’s eyes fades, I feel the hive fracture under the influx of his soul filling us with power. But we do not feel good. That is notfun.
This is a cruel mistake. The trust we have shatters, replaced by suspicion and guilt.
I stumble away from the memory, my heart pounding and bile rising in my throat. What we’ve done—whatI’vedone—threatens to annihilate me.
I catch a familiar musky floral scent through the haze. Willow.
It’s faint but unmistakable—hope. She is a glimmer in the distance, dimming by the second under the weight of our darkness. She came here, knowing what she walked into. Varen’s voice surrounds me, hardening me and giving me armor.
Catch our falling star, give her your heart, and she will guide us home.
I push forward, driven by a need to find her, to protect her from the horrors of our history, and maybe, just maybe, find redemption in her love. But the more I am pelted with memories from the past, the more I am torn between rage and regret.
Suddenly, I’m there again. The Morrigan’s primeval domain, eons ago. The acrid smell of brimstone and rancid ink fills my nostrils. Oppressive heat pushes at my skin. I watch, helpless, as our younger selves are forced to devour the souls her sister Danu births, each one burning like acid down our throat until we find the one that tastes like something else—the one set apart, an innocent mortal with heartache. We did anything to enhance that ache so the sweet flavor was strong enough to coat our tongue. It is the closest we become to understanding the other side of our coin.
Screams echo in my ears, a storm of agony I once found so sweet. Now, it turns my stomach.
I continue to hurtle from one hideous memory to the next, watching myself commit unspeakable acts. In one, I’m tearing a village apart, reveling in chaos and destruction. In another, I’m standing over a battlefield, drinking in the despair of the dying, licking their blood from my fangs. The hurricane of time threatens to suck me under, to keep me lost in the world I once lived.
That was before Willow.
Another whiff of her scent.Mine. Ours. I latch onto the only part of me I know she is unafraid of. I hunt.
Her taste. Think about her taste.
But I am thrown into another memory, this one more visceral than any other.
Within the safetyof my bedroom, I watch through our shared hive mind as Fox pokes at a mess on the kitchen counter with his black-stained talon. It’s his third attempt at cooking People Food, which resembles a disemboweled muskox’s intestines.
Styx’s voice drips with disdain. “I don’t think it’s supposed to look like that.”
Fox’s determination pulses through our link. “I must begin again.”
Emrys’s voice rasps into our collective consciousness. “Let it go.”
But Fox can’t. “We want to please our fated queen.”
Emrys’s disquiet ripples through our shared space. Despite his disparaging attitude, he can’t overcome the curiosity we all harbor for our one true queen.
