Page 37 of House of Gilded Nightmares

My heart races as he walks away, my body still burning in all the places he’d pressed against me. We’re in grave danger, but it’s all wrapped together in a barrage of sensations I’ve never felt before. Chest tight, stomach fluttering, palms sweaty, every nerve on edge. I manage to shift into a sitting position. I watch as Zyren stops at the riverbank, looks right and then left, pauses a moment, then returns to where I’m huddled in his bed.

“You’re not in danger,” he says, sitting at the edge of the bed. The moonlight catches all the scars on his chest, the map of his life laid bare to the night.

“I-I don’t understand,” I sputter. “Did you not see the creature? It’s right down there, just a bit downstream…”

“I saw it,” he says. His eyes meet mine, look down again, as if searching for words. “What you saw—who you saw—is Riya. She’s a shapeshifter.”

I blink in confusion. “Riya? So, it’s not a nightmare?”

Zyren takes in a deep breath and lets it out. “Riya’s father is a Valaronian,” he says. “And her mother is a nightmare.”

“I don’t understand…”

“It is not entirely unheard of,” Zyren continues. “We’ve lived for centuries together, our realms merged. And while many of the nightmares are indeed the beasts of horror that haunt the night, there are those who have evolved.”

My expression of disbelief is clearly apparent to Zyren because he reaches out and takes one of my hands in his own.

“I have known Riya for more than a century, and she has saved my life many times, and I hers. Please know I would never bring you within harm’s way. I came here, in fact, because Riya’s magic is so strong that the other nightmares cannot penetrate her home. It’s the safest place we could be right now.”

“So…a nightmare…is protecting us…from other nightmares?” I shake my head, trying to come to terms with what he’s saying. My heart is still racing so fast it feels like it might break free from my chest.

“Yes. I know it sounds odd.”

My next words come unbidden, my mind still panicked, thoughts and feelings whirling like a maelstrom. “But…didn’t a nightmare kill your brother?”

Zyren jerks back as if I’ve stabbed him, his expression a mix of shock and fury. His words rumble the entire bed when he speaks. “How do you know that?”

Ice-hot adrenaline spikes through my body, the blood leaving my face. “Your dreams…I didn’t try to, Zyren…”

He stands and spins, stalking away from me, out through the side of his room that’s open to the garden of exotic flowers. In a matter of moments, he’s crossed through the garden and climbing a set of stone steps on the far side, which turns and cuts into the peak of the mountain where he disappears from sight.

Throat dry with the horror of what I’d said, I climb shakily out of the bed and follow him.

The heady scent of the flowers clings to me as I walk through the stone path between them, making my way to the stone steps. They’re steep, nearly hidden such that I wouldn’t have even noticed them if I hadn’t just seen Zyren climb them. Straight up, then around to the right, hugging the side of the mountain peak, a dizzying drop off to the right side with no rail. When I reach the open section, I pause, palm against the cool rock wall on my left to steady myself, heart pounding anew in my chest. Then, swallowing my fear, I step out onto the path.

It is narrow, just a thin ledge cut into the side of the mountain, climbing upward and around the mountain’s peak. The night air sweeps down on me, making me shiver in my velvety night dress, whipping my hair back behind me. Only the moon lights my path, which grows dim several times when clouds flit across it. The stairs spiral, cutting back to the left. And then, abruptly, they open onto the very peak of the mountain.

The space is no more than ten strides across. My bare feet protest both the cold and the rough stone beneath them. But I hardly notice because, in the light of the moon and stars, I can see for miles in all directions. The mountains stretch like an ocean all around me, capped with snow that glints like the stars overhead. Everything is painted in a silvery, glittery glow, the air itself charged with it. My breath comes out in little puffs from my lips, and I half expect that to glitter, also.

And then there is Zyren, standing shirtless and bare to the night, in this place at the top of the world.

He faces away from me, not moving a muscle as I carefully step across the mountain peak toward him. Shadows flare off him, black flames flickering up into the sky before dissipating. He stands so still he seems frozen, and when the wind dies for several moments, it almost seems as if everything else is frozen, too, a crystal drop of time. But then, when I’m a foot away from him, the wind picks up again, and my guardian turns ever so slightly. I can see the profile of his face, the sharp line of his jaw.

“You shouldn’t be here, Sarielle.” His voice is deeper than the roots of the mountain, darker than the sky. “Go back to bed.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, repeating it when the wind rips my words away. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your dreams. I-I don’t even know how it happened.”

Slowly, he turns to face me, arms crossed over his chest, expression grim. “I know. Return to your room. I’m not angry.”

“You seem angry,” I say breathily, watching as the shadows keep flickering around him. “You seem…”

“I am not angry with you,” he clarifies. “It’s not your fault.”

“It’s normal, then? For you to enter my dreams and me to enter yours?” I cross my arms over my chest also, shivering as the wind tugs at my hair.

Zyren doesn’t speak for a moment. “No,” he finally says. “It’s not normal. The guardian can enter their ward’s dreams for protection from the nightmares. But it doesn’t usually work the other way around.”

I suck in a deep breath. “What does that mean?”

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