Page 57 of The Curse of Golden Blood
I smiled, leaning against the doorway. "You're up early."
She started, nearly dropping her needle, and spun to face me. "Zydar!"
"Sorry." I lifted my hands, palms out. "Didn't mean to startle you."
She shook her head, her smile returning. "You didn't. I was just... lost in thought."
"Thinking about what?"
She glanced out the window, her voice going quiet. "Nothing."
I moved toward her, my footsteps silent. The boards were worn smooth beneath my boots, the dust kicked up by age instead of feet.
I settled into the chair beside hers, the old wood groaning beneath my weight. It smelled of beeswax and lavender, the scents she used to polish it. "Something is wrong," I said, "I can tell."
She didn't meet my gaze, but her fingers tightened around the needle.
"Narietta..." I waited until her eyes met mine, then took her hand in mine. "Talk to me."
Her voice was barely more than a whisper. "It's nothing. Just... bad dreams."
"Again?"
Her dreams were no ordinary dreams. During her childhood, they foretold the coming storms. Floods. Wildfires. They had saved our lives countless times, warning us of invasions, supply shortages, or the outbreak of the Rot.
And father's death.
That had come not as dreams, but a persistent feeling. A foreboding tightness in her chest. No image or nightmare to explain it, just a raw, hollow sense that he was gone.
"What do you see, Nari?"
Her body sagged, the weariness showing through her calm facade at last. "Nothing I can be sure of."
"Tell me anyway."
She sucked in a breath and let it out in a slow, shaking exhalation. "Miralyte." She raised her gaze. "My dreams are always about Miralyte."
A cold thread of dread coiled in my gut. “What was about Mira?”
Her eyes darkened. “She's coming for her."
The air in the room shifted, colder, heavier. “Who?”
Narietta’s throat worked, and she glanced away, as if the name itself might burn her tongue. “The Scorchbringer.”
The word seemed to still the world around us.
Ylvena.
The cold deepened until it reached my bones. “When?”
“I don’t know. Soon. Too soon. She’s moving already… and she will not stop until she has her.”
This wasn't about me anymore. It was about more than just the court, it was about everything. My heart drummed against my ribs, until I was sure it would explode.
I made a fist, my nails cutting into my palm. My heartrate didn't slow.
Ylvena would never stop. Not until she had what she wanted. Her greed was endless, and her lust for power drove her every move.
