Page 46 of House of Gilded Nightmares

We move past the gate into the complex, and I hear it close back behind us with a creak. Despite the temporary nature of it, it doesn’t seem any less easy to escape. The walls are a dozen feet high, a row of logs at the top spiking inwards so it’s unclimbable. There are dozens of warriors within the space, huddled around tents and fires. They watch as we pass, many sharpening swords or cooking stew in iron pots over a flame. Some even stand up as I pass, watching me with hard eyes. I can sense their loathing, though I have never met any of these people in my life. It’s strange to be hated for something you only just discovered about your bloodline.

In what seems to be roughly the center of camp, one tent rises twice as high as the others and is several times as large. It’s black, with the red serpent emblem flying from a flag above it. The rider holding me reins in his horse, and the other that had traveled with us leaps off his horse and comes around to pull me down. Despite my fear and nausea and the fact that I feel bruised across my entire abdomen, I growl and struggle against him. I know it won’t stop him, but I’m not going to make it easy for them.

The riders each grab a shoulder and drag me inside the tent, dumping me on a fancy rug next to a metal fire bowl. As I try to right myself, which is exceedingly difficult with my wrists and ankles bound, I sense the two riders go still, staring at something beyond me. No doubt waiting for praise for being the ones to deliver me.

“You may go.” The voice is cold as the stars, hard as black diamond, sharp as the lash of a whip, coiled yet ready to inflict pain.

They scurry away, backing from the tent with mutters of reverence and obeisance.

I finally get to my knees, and my eyes meet those of my captor.

“You look far too fragile to be the very last of House Otreyas,” she says. “The one so fervently sought all this time.”

I try to snarl a retort, but the gag prevents me from forming coherent words. My captor raises a hand, and with a flash of magic, my gag falls away.

“Looks can be deceiving,” I say softly but with a core of heat.

We stare at each other, appraising, sizing up. The woman before me has brown hair and brown eyes the color of tea poured in a porcelain cup. Her skin is pale, her frame slim. She wears a black cloak lined with fur around the collar, and pants and boots. Her hair is braided and hangs neatly over one shoulder. A thin bronze coronet sits at her brow. She looks utterly ordinary, but she feels anything but. Magic pulsates in her core with such strength I don’t know how she keeps it in check. Like a dragon with liquid fire in its belly, ready to explode.

“Perhaps,” she says, shrugging an elegant shoulder. “I suppose it doesn’t matter either way. Your line will die with you, whether you go quietly or not.”

I force myself not to shudder at her mention of my impending death. I am afraid, but I am also very, very angry. “You seem to know quite a bit about me, but I know nothing of you. Since you so casually mention my murder, perhaps you can at least share your name.”

The woman gets up from the carved wooden chair she’s sitting in, and she slowly circles around the fire toward me. There isn’t much else in the tent: just the fire and chair near the center, several wooden chests along the exterior wall, and an arrangement of weapons on a rack at the back.

“Yes, I’m sure you are surprised to learn of my existence,” she says. “Of the existence of this world at all. It must have been strange for you, growing up in Aureon all those years. Never knowing your heritage and how many sought you. For one reason or another.”

I don’t answer her as she circles me, that magic flickering within her like a cat whipping its tail back and forth, ready to pounce. The fire catches her eyes and turns them red-gold.

“Our families go way back…more than a thousand years,” she continues. “In the beginning, we were allies, despite being cut out of the great spell that bound Valaron to the nightmares and kept them in check. We were told the union of House Otreyas and House Lyonian would only be the beginning. That House Septarus would be brought into the fold, rewarded for its loyalty. Yet over the years, decades that turned to centuries that turned to many centuries, it became clear the two ruling houses had no intention of sharing that power.”

She pauses in her slow circle, raking her gaze across mine with almost physical force. I ignore the tug of magic in that gaze, and I look to the fire instead.

“I watched first my grandfather, and then my father, continue to believe these same lies. Continue to eat the meager crumbs your families left them while they hoarded the power. For centuries I watched, and I endured. I tried to reason with my father, especially after my grandfather died, the last to have lived when the spell was performed. But he favored patience, and he truly believed, after all this time, that your family would one day reward our loyalty.”

“And so,” she says, “I found someone who would listen.” The flames of the fire flare and flicker as she gazes into them for several moments. Then, when she resumes walking, they die down again.

“The nightmares,” I say softly.

“Yes. Those who want their freedom as much as I do.” A lash of magic, and the flames flare again. “So, I devised a plan, and twenty-one years ago, I acted on it. My father invited your family over to our castle to celebrate your birth, and it was as if the goddess had laid you all in my lap, throat at my blade.”

Horror rises in my chest. This is not just the woman who captured me. She is not just one of the rulers of House Septarus. She’s the one who killed my entire family.

A laugh, low and twisted like rusted wire. “Yes. See, you know who I am after all, don’t you? I killed your family. Mine, too, if that makes you feel any better. They would have only tried to stop me.” Another laugh, and then she turns and inclines her head in a mock bow. “I am Avonia of House Septarus. It’s lovely to meet you.”

I let every ounce of my hatred heat my glare, but that only makes her chuckle.

“You can imagine my dismay when your pregnant mother managed to escape the carnage and delay my plans even further. Hiding you away like she did, in another realm entirely. After centuries of waiting…” Her eyes flash as if the flames of the fire are inside them. And the way she can control them, maybe they are. But then she smiles. “I suppose two extra decades aren’t much compared to the time I’ve waited. And now, our story has nearly come to an end. It will be well worth the wait.”

Through my rage and shock, I turn over what she’d just said, my head not quite able to process it. “Hiding me away like she did?”

Avonia smiles wide enough to swallow the whole sky. “Who else do you think had enough power to send you through to Eldare?”

My eyes flutter, so much emotion moving through me that I fight from keeling over into the fire. “I thought the High Priest…”

“He didn’t have nearly enough power,” Avonia scoffs. “No, only one with royal blood, and the power of Valaron behind her, would have been able to do that.” She pauses, pinning me in her gaze. “You were not abducted, Sarielle of House Otreyas. Your mother sent you to live with the High Priest, and then she left you there.”

Seeing the shock and betrayal on my face, Avonia says, “Don’t worry. She came back for her revenge, and she found my blade soon enough after that.”

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