Page 22 of House of Gilded Nightmares

Zyren blinks at me, his mouth opening and closing a couple of times, fog spiraling around him. “What would I have said?”

“The truth. You could have told me where I came from. Told me what you had planned for me, that you were only my guardian so you could spirit me away for your king.”

His eyes flicker, almost a wince. “It’s not what I planned for you. This is far beyond you or me. It simply is.”

“I don’t accept that.” My voice holds a lash of heat. “I accepted too much for too long, quietly and without struggle. I will not be quiet any longer. Know that.”

“You will fight against fate itself?” He cocks his head to the side, his gaze burning into mine.

“I will fight anyone or anything who wants to keep me caged and compliant. I control my own destiny from now on. The stars themselves can battle against me, and they will not win.”

Zyren watches me for several long moments, and then he nods. A moment later, the mist swirls and he is gone.

I wake with the dawn, getting up and stretching my sore muscles, then dusting off the bits of moss and dirt that stick to my pants and cloak. Arrow lets out a soft nicker in greeting which warms my heart. Walking over to her, I tighten her girth back up and untie the reins from the tree. The first rays of sunlight stab down through the trees around us, turning the forest a hazy, pewter hue.

I’ve just turned around to lead Arrow from our glen when Zyren steps into view on the other side of the small space. My dagger is out of my boot and in my hand in an instant.

But he does not come closer. He raises his hands in a gesture of placation. “I just want to talk.”

I stare at him, at his face that is so familiar to me, more so than any other man. He’s this strange part of me, present in so many dreams and yet an absolute stranger. But his expression as he looks at me now is not the hard, angry countenance he’s worn ever since I broke through into this realm. There’s an openness, a vulnerability, and maybe even a tinge of regret.

I nod but say, “Do not come closer. Stay over there.”

He slowly sits down, leaving his gelding standing behind him. I hesitate a couple of moments, then I sit down, too. A dozen feet separate us, give or take.

“What would you like to talk about?”

“I want to continue our discussion from last night,” he says. “It’s clear to me now that I’ve approached this all wrong. I should explain everything that led to this.”

“Go on,” I say when he pauses.

“I’d been trying to find a way to bring you back to Valaron for years. But it takes an incredible, near impossible, amount of magic to cut between realms. I didn’t have the power to do it.”

I blink in confusion. “But you did do it. You brought me here.”

“I brought you to Valaron. But first, you summoned me to Eldare.”

“I wouldn’t even know how to do such a thing,” I scoff.

“Maybe not, but your magic clearly did. In your fear and panic, you summoned me, and then I was able to move us back through the path you cut before it closed.”

We sit and stare at each other for several moments.

“It was surprising, to say the least,” Zyren says. “It was even more…challenging…that we arrived where we did in Valaron, amongst the nightmares. We were thrown into a bad situation abruptly.”

“Is all of this your way of apologizing?” I ask, shaking my head.

A muscle in Zyren’s jaw twitches. “I’m merely explaining why there might have been extra tension between us.”

I open my mouth to interject again, but he raises a hand. “There are other things at play here, too.”

This halts the acidic response on the tip of my tongue. “Such as?”

Zyren looks off into the trees for a moment, taking a deep breath and letting it out. When he returns his gaze to mine, there’s a gravity there that makes my heart go still.

“I know you’re reluctant to marry someone you’ve never met,” he begins. “But there’s more to it than that.”

I wait as he pauses, seeming to choose his next words carefully.

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